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Dunia kena sepakat tangani perubahan iklim

2007-10-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

Oleh Azman Zakaria

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Razak berkata, usaha menangani fenomena perubahan iklim perlu menjadi keutamaan semua negara kerana kegagalan membendung gejala itu akan membawa bahaya kepada kehidupan manusia sejagat pada masa depan.

Timbalan Perdana Menteri berkata, fenomena itu adalah nyata dan mempunyai kesan meluas, manakala usaha menanganinya memerlukan tindakan sepadu serta sepakat sama ada dalam sesebuah negara mahupun global.

“Oleh kerana bumi adalah satu-satunya tempat tinggal manusia, berdiam diri dengan hanya menjadi penonton tanpa mengendahkannya bukan satu pilihan.

“Kita dikurniakan alam sekitar dan iklim yang membolehkan generasi kita hidup dalam keadaan sihat, bermakna dan produktif. Oleh itu adalah menjadi tanggungjawab moral kita untuk menyerahkan dunia yang sihat dan sesuai bagi kehidupan kepada generasi akan datang,” katanya ketika merasmikan Persidangan Serantau Mengenai Perubahan Iklim di sini, semalam.

Beliau berkata, adalah penting untuk mengakui hakikat bahawa negara memberi komitmen kepada usaha menangani perubahan iklim pada peringkat antarabangsa hanya jika usaha yang dilakukan itu selaras dengan kepentingan mereka.

Justeru, katanya, tahap pembangunan, keutamaan pembangunan, sumber semula jadi dan struktur politik mempengaruhi sama ada mereka berupaya melaksanakan usaha menangani perubahan iklim.

Katanya, ia bermakna sasaran yang berbeza perlu ditentukan supaya semua negara boleh membabitkan diri secara aktif manakala semua program pembangunan, terutama di negara membangun mesti mengambil kira aspek perubahan iklim.

Timbalan Perdana Menteri berkata, usaha untuk memajukan kedudukan ekonomi dan sosial serta dengan matlamat untuk membasmi kemiskinan akan secara serentak berupaya menangani masalah pelepasan gas rumah hijau.

“Bagaimanapun usaha pada peringkat nasional seperti itu memerlukan sokongan pada peringkat antarabangsa oleh negara maju menerusi bantuan bina upaya, pemindahan teknologi dan bantuan kewangan kepada negara membangun,” katanya.

Beliau berkata, perubahan iklim bukan saja menyebabkan cuaca melampau, tetapi mempunyai kesan negatif terhadap pertanian, kepelbagaian biologi, hutan, air bersih dan meningkatkan kes penyakit seperti malaria dan denggi.

Katanya, ia turut menyebabkan kawasan rendah dilanda banjir seperti dialami Malaysia pada Disember 2005 dan 2006 serta Januari tahun ini yang mengakibatkan kerugian RM4 bilion.

“Perubahan iklim tidak mengenal negara, tugas yang mendesak untuk kita sekarang ialah apa yang perlu kita lakukan pada peringkat nasional dan antarabangsa,” katanya.

Najib juga berkata, di peringkat antarabangsa, walaupun usaha dijalankan menerusi Konvensyen Rangka Kerja Bangsa-bangsa Bersatu mengenai Perubahan Iklim (UNFCC) dan Protokol Kyoto, namun pelepasan gas perindustrian terus meningkat.

Katanya, mengikut laporan penilaian keempat Panel Antara Kerajaan mengenai Perubahan Iklim (IPCC) yang dikeluarkan Februari lalu, cuaca 11 tahun kebelakangan ini adalah antara 12 tahun paling panas sejak 1850.

Malaysia katanya, komited melaksanakan pembangunan mapan dan antara inisiatif utama yang dilaksanakan kerajaan dalam menghadapi kepanasan global ialah dalam bidang tenaga yang diperbaharui.

Air Quality Action Day Forecast in Pennsylvania Cities

2007-10-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

by Trey Granger on August 6th, 2007

Harrisburg, PA - The Department of Environmental Protection and its regional air quality partnerships today announced an air quality action day is forecast for Tuesday, Aug. 7, in the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and south central Susquehanna Valley regions.

The forecast says Tuesday will be code ORANGE for ozone in the Philadelphia area, and for fine particulate matter in the Pittsburgh and Susquehanna Valley areas.

The Philadelphia region includes Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties;
The Pittsburgh region includes Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties; and
The Susquehanna Valley region includes Cumberland, Lebanon, Dauphin, Lancaster and York counties.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standardized air quality index uses colors to report daily air quality (green signifies good, yellow means moderate, orange represents unhealthy pollution levels for sensitive people, and red warns of unhealthy pollution levels for all). Air quality action days are declared at orange and red when fine particulate matter reaches unhealthy levels.

Ground-level ozone, a key component of smog, forms during warm weather when pollution from vehicles, industry, households and power plants “bakes” in the hot sun, making it hard for some people to breathe.

Fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, has a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, about one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair. Unlike ozone, particulate matter pollution can occur year-round. These particles can get deep into the lungs and cause significant health problems. PM 2.5 has been determined to be most closely associated with health effects related to increased hospitals admissions and emergency room visits for heart and lung disease, increased respiratory symptoms and disease, and decreased lung function.

The particles come from a wide range of sources — from power plants, industry, cars, trucks, buses, wood stoves and forest fires. Some particles are released when fuels are burned; others form in the atmosphere from reactions between gases released from power plants and factories.

On air quality action days, young children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems, such as asthma, emphysema and bronchitis, are especially vulnerable to the effects of air pollution and should limit outdoor activities.

To help keep the air healthy, residents and businesses are encouraged to voluntarily limit certain pollution-producing activities by taking the following steps:

Ride the bus or carpool to work;
Avoid burning leaves, trash and other materials;
Wash dishes and clothes with full loads; and
Save energy - do not overcool your home.
These forecasts are provided in conjunction with the Air Quality Partnership of the Delaware Valley, the Southwest Pennsylvania Air Quality Partnership, the Lehigh Valley/Berks Air Quality Partnership, and the Susquehanna Valley Air Quality Partnership.

For more information on ozone and fine particulate matter, visit http://www.depweb.state.pa.us, keyword: Ozone. For more information on the Air Quality Partnerships, view the air quality forecast, or receive free daily forecasts by e-mail, visit http://www.aqpartners.org. For more information on air quality in your area, visit Earth 911’s Air Quality page.

50 Things You Can Do For Cleaner Air

2007-10-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

by Earth 911 Staff on April 2nd, 2007

Drive Less, Drive Smart
About half of the air pollution comes from cars and trucks. Two important ways to reduce air pollution are to drive less — even a little less — and to drive smart. Try combining driving with alternative modes of transportation:

1. Carpool.
2. Walk or ride a bicycle.
3. Shop by phone or mail.
4. Ride public transit.
5. Telecommute.

Driving smart keeps pollution at a minimum. *

6. Accelerate gradually.
7. Use cruise control on the highway.
8. Obey the speed limit.
9. Combine your errands into one trip.
10. Keep your car tuned and support the smog check program.
11. Don’t top off at the gas pumps.
12. Replace your car’s air filter.
13. Keep your tires properly inflated.
14. What about smoking vehicles? Contact the EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning & Standards.

* What you do when you are stuck in traffic and not “driving” can be very important as well. Consider turning your engine off if you will be idling for long periods of time.

That’s not all. When shopping for your next car…

15. Look for the most efficient, lowest polluting model–or even use either a non-polluting car or zero emission vehicle. Visit these web sites for information that will help you identify clean and fuel efficient vehicles in any part of the country:

EPA’s Green vehicle Guide
The DOE/EPA Fuel Economy Guide
The U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities Site
If you must drive on days with unhealthy air, drive your newest car. Newer cars generally pollute less than older models.

Choose Air-Friendly Products
Many products you use in your home, in the yard, or at the office are made with smog-forming chemicals that escape into the air. Here are a few ways to put a lid on products that pollute:

16. Select products that are water-based or have low amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
17. Use water-based paints. Look for paints labeled “zero-VOC.”
18. Paint with a brush, not a sprayer.
19. Store solvents in air-tight containers.
20. Use a push or electric lawn mower.
21. Start your barbecue briquettes with an electric probe, or use a propane or natural gas barbecue.

Save Energy
Saving energy helps reduce air pollution. Whenever you burn fossil fuel, you pollute the air. Use less gasoline, natural gas, and electricity (power plants burn fossil fuels to generate electricity):

22. Turn off the lights when you leave a room.
23. Replace energy hungry incandescent lights with fluorescent lighting.
24. Check with your utility company for energy conservation tips, like purchasing energy saving appliances.
25. Use a thermostat that automatically turns off the air conditioner or heater when you don’t need them.
26. Add insulation to your home.
27. Use a fan instead of air conditioning.
28. Use an EPA-approved wood burning stove or fireplace insert.
29. Heat small meals in a microwave oven.
30. Insulate your water heater.
31. Install low flow showerheads.
32. Dry your clothes on a clothesline.

Waste Not
It takes energy to make and sell the products we use. Here are ways to cut energy use, reduce air pollution, and save money.

33. Choose recycled products.
34. Choose products with recyclable packaging.
35. Reuse paper bags.
36. Recycle paper, plastics, and metals.
37. Print and photocopy on both sides of the paper.

Watch out for the small stuff
When you breathe, very small particles — such as dust, soot, and acid droplets — can slip past your lung’s natural defense system. These particles get stuck deep in your lungs and may cause problems — more asthma attacks, bronchitis and other lung diseases, decreased resistance to infections, and even premature death for the elderly or sick. Here are a few things you can do to reduce particulate matter pollution and protect yourself:

38. Don’t use your wood stove or fireplace on days with unhealthy air.
39. Avoid using leaf blowers and other types of equipment that raise a lot of dust. Use a rake or broom instead.
40. Drive slowly on unpaved roads.
41. Drive less, particularly on days with unhealthy air.
42. Avoid vigorous physical activity on days with unhealthy air.

Know The Inside Story
Air pollution is a problem indoors and out. Most people spend at least 80 percent of their lives indoors. Here are some ways you can reduce pollution in your home, office or school:

43. Don’t smoke. Send smokers outside.
44. Products such as cleaning agents, paints, and glues often contain harmful chemicals. Use them outdoors or with plenty of ventilation indoors.
45. Use safer products, such as baking soda instead of harsher chemical cleaners.
46. Don’t heat your home with a gas cooking stove.
47. Have your gas appliances and heater regularly inspected and maintained.
48. Clean frequently to remove dust and molds.

Visit EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Home Page for more information.

Speak Up For Clean Air
Do what you can to reduce air pollution. It will make a difference. Use your civic influence to improve regional and national air pollution standards:

49. Write to your local newspaper. Support action for healthy air.
50. Let your elected representative know you support action for clean air.

U.S. Imposes Highest Acid Rain Fine Ever

2007-10-06T15:34:00.002-07:00

by Trey Granger on September 20th, 2007

Washington, D.C. – In a landmark settlement filed today, East Kentucky Power Cooperative, a coal-fired electric utility, has agreed to pay an $11.4 million penalty to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act’s acid rain program, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today.

As part of today’s settlement, the U.S. is seeking court-approval for the highest fine ever under the Clean Air Act’s acid rain program. The Commonwealth of Kentucky joined in today’s consent decree.

The settlement requires that the company take steps to reduce approximately 400 tons of harmful emissions each year and offset another approximately 20,000 tons of emissions released from its Clark County, Ky. facility without a permit.

“We enforce the Clean Air Act to protect people’s health,” said Granta Nakayama, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “This settlement shows that when you violate the law, EPA will be there to make you pay.”

“East Kentucky Power Cooperative has agreed to install pollution control equipment as well as monitor and reduce emissions harmful to our health and the environment,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Ronald J. Tenpas for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “This is an important agreement that has true benefits to the people of Kentucky.”

The government estimated that the utility’s Dale Generating Station emitted over 15,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 4,000 tons of nitrogen oxide without a permit from approximately 2000-2005. In addition, the government alleged the utility exceeded the federal annual emission rate for nitrogen oxides.

The utility is also required to apply for an acid rain permit, continuously monitor sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and install and operate nitrogen oxide controls. These pollution controls will reduce annual nitrogen oxide emissions by approximately 400 tons per year.

Coal-fired power plants are allowed to emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the form of “allowances,” which are granted under federal or state acid rain permits based on a national annual emissions cap.

If a utility emits less, it can sell unused allowances to other utilities, or save them for use later. If it emits more, it must purchase allowances from other utilities and surrender those allowances to EPA.

In this case, East Kentucky is required to purchase and retire allowances representing 20,000 tons of emissions, which represents their emissions during the period of noncompliance.

Coal-fired plants release sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides, which are a primary cause of acid rain that harms trees and lakes and impairs visibility. Nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides cause severe respiratory problems, contribute to childhood asthma, and contribute to smog and haze. Emissions from power plants can drift significant distances downwind and degrade air quality in nearby areas.

Today’s agreement allows the company to pay the $11.4 million penalty over six years. East Kentucky will also pay additional penalties if it meets certain thresholds of financial performance.

Last July, East Kentucky agreed to install pollution controls estimated to cost $650 million and to pay a $750,000 penalty to resolve violations of the new source review provisions of the Clean Air Act at the Dale facility and two other plants.

Today’s proposed agreement, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Lexington, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval. A copy of the consent decree is available on the Department of Justice Web site.

Smog Thinner, Skies Healthier over Eastern U.S.

2007-10-06T15:34:00.001-07:00

by Trey Granger on September 27th, 2007

Washington, D.C. — Smog-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from power plants and industry have declined significantly in 19 eastern states and the District of Columbia. The NOx Budget Trading Program (NBP) annual report, released today, indicates that summertime NOx emissions were seven percent lower than in 2005, 60 percent lower than in 2000 and 74 percent lower than in 1990.

“The proof is in the numbers. By cutting smog-forming emissions, 55 million Americans in the eastern United States are breathing easier thanks to President Bush’s clean air policies,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “NOx reductions are not just good news for the health of our environment and the health of our residents, they are good news for the health of our economy.”

The reduction of NOx – a precursor to ground-level ozone, or “smog” – has helped reduce ground-level ozone concentrations an average of 5-8 percent in the eastern United States in the last three years. Four out of five eastern ozone non-attainment areas now meet the current standard.

The EPA report tracks summertime emission reductions from 1990 to 2006 and assesses the impact of these reductions on ozone air quality in the eastern region. The largest NOx reductions occurred in the mid-central area of the eastern United States including Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.

The NOx Budget Trading Program is flexible and lets electric generating units choose the best options to reduce NOx emissions during ozone season for their facilities. Options include adding NOx emission-control technologies, replacing existing controls with more advanced technologies or optimizing existing controls. This flexibility, and an active NOx allowance market, has helped lead to an over 99 percent compliance rate with the program’s requirements

INDOOR EMISSIONS FROM HOUSEHOLD COAL COMBUSTION CARCINOGENIC: WOMEN IN LOW- OR MEDIUM-RESOURCE COUNTRIES MOST EXPOSED 2

2007-10-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

INDOOR EMISSIONS FROM HOUSEHOLD COAL COMBUSTION CARCINOGENIC: WOMEN IN LOW- OR MEDIUM-RESOURCE COUNTRIES MOST EXPOSED

An IARC Monographs Working Group has concluded that indoor emissions from household combustion of coal are carcinogenic to humans (Group 11), after a thorough review of the published scientific evidence.
At the same time, the Working Group concluded that indoor emissions from household combustion of biomass fuel2 (mostly wood) are probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A1).
To complement these evaluations of indoor air pollutants, the Working Group also assessed the potential carcinogenicity of emissions from high-temperature frying.
These emissions were also evaluated as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A1).
A summary of the IARC evaluation is published in the Policy Watch section of the December issue of The Lancet Oncology, and the results will be presented at the Society for Risk analysis Annual Meeting in Baltimore (USA) on December 4.

Risk reduction measures

Exposure to polluted indoor air from combustion of wood or coal or from frying can be greatly reduced by adequate ventilation, e.g. through the construction of a chimney, as has been shown in China. This seems an obvious first public health measure to start reducing the lung cancer burden for large parts of the world's population. Changing cooking and heating methods should also be considered.
The Working Group, comprising 19 scientists from 8 countries, was convened by the IARC Monographs Programme of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer research agency of the World Health Organization.

Major public health importance
"This new IARC Monograph (volume 95) addresses exposures that are experienced daily by hundreds of millions world-wide," said Dr Peter Boyle, Director of IARC. It is estimated that approximately half the world’s population uses wood or coal for cooking and heating, often in poorly ventilated, and often unventilated, spaces. For instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of households using solid fuels climbs to over 90%. "It is therefore of enormous public health importance that we call attention to the health risks of what is daily practice for so many people", he continued.

Coal risks not new
Occupational exposure to coal combustion products has long been known to cause lung cancer. Products of incomplete combustion contain respirable particles and many organic chemicals, including known human carcinogens such as benzo[a]pyrene, formaldehyde and benzene. Average indoor concentrations of fine particles (< 10 micrometres) can be as high as several milligrams per cubic metre, with peak concentrations ten times higher. On the basis of conclusive epidemiological evidence, the Working Group evaluated indoor emissions from household combustion of coal as “carcinogenic to humans” (Group 11). Dr Boyle stressed that “There are parts of the world where women and young children especially are exposed to these high levels of indoor air pollution for most of their day. Fortunately, these exposure levels can be greatly lowered, and the cancer risk reduced.”

Wood smoke a probable carcinogen…
While the association of emissions from coal combustion with lung cancer was relatively clear-cut, the evidence of increased cancer risk associated with emissions from biomass combustion (mainly from wood) was less studied : these emissions were classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A1).

… and so is high-temperature frying
To complete this review of indoor air pollution, the Working Group evaluated the potential carcinogenicity of various ways of frying: stir-frying, deep-frying and panfrying, which involve heating oil to high temperatures, are practiced worldwide and are particularly widespread in East Asia. On the basis of limited data in humans and conclusive evidence in experimental animals, the Working Group concluded that emissions from high-temperature frying are “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A1). This classification was supported by a wealth of experimental data on the mutagenicity of emissions of cooking oil at temperatures around 230 degrees Celsius. The frying method or type of oil used did not seem to have a big influence on the results of the epidemiological studies.

Evaluating carcinogenic risks to humans
The IARC Monographs Programme on the evaluation of carcinogenic risks to humans has traditionally focused its attention on the evaluation of occupational and lifestyle exposures in populations of the developed, industrialized world. This new monograph deals with an exposure that is widespread in low- and medium-resource countries, and reflects how the Monographs Programme has broadened its scope and reach.

1 See the definitions in the Appendix below
2 Biomass includes wood, charcoal, dung and unprocessed vegetal residue.

APPENDIX: ABOUT THE IARC MONOGRAPHS

INDOOR EMISSIONS FROM HOUSEHOLD COAL COMBUSTION CARCINOGENIC: WOMEN IN LOW- OR MEDIUM-RESOURCE COUNTRIES MOST EXPOSED 1

2007-10-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

INDOOR EMISSIONS FROM HOUSEHOLD COAL COMBUSTION CARCINOGENIC: WOMEN IN LOW- OR MEDIUM-RESOURCE COUNTRIES MOST EXPOSED

APPENDIX: ABOUT THE IARC MONOGRAPHS

What are the IARC Monographs?

The IARC Monographs identify environmental factors that can increase the risk of human cancer. These include chemicals, complex mixtures, occupational exposures, physical and biological agents, and lifestyle factors. National health agencies use this information as scientific support for their actions to prevent exposure to potential carcinogens.
Interdisciplinary working groups of expert scientists review the published studies and evaluate the weight of the evidence that an agent can increase the risk of cancer. The principles, procedures, and scientific criteria that guide the evaluations are described in the Preamble to the IARC Monographs.
Since 1971, more than 900 agents have been evaluated, of which approximately 400 have been identified as carcinogenic or potentially carcinogenic to humans.

Definitions

Group 1: The agent (mixture) is carcinogenic to humans.

The exposure circumstance entails exposures that are carcinogenic to humans.
This category is used when there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans. Exceptionally, an agent (mixture) may be placed in this category when evidence of carcinogenicity in humans is less than sufficient but there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals and strong evidence in exposed humans that the agent (mixture) acts through a relevant mechanism of carcinogenicity.

Group 2

This category includes agents, mixtures and exposure circumstances for which, at one extreme, the degree of evidence of carcinogenicity in humans is almost sufficient, as well as those for which, at the other extreme, there are no human data but for which there is evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Agents, mixtures and exposure circumstances are assigned to either group 2A (probably carcinogenic to humans) or group 2B (possibly carcinogenic to humans) on the basis of epidemiological and experimental evidence of carcinogenicity and other relevant data.

Group 2A: The agent (mixture) is probably carcinogenic to humans.

The exposure circumstance entails exposures that are probably carcinogenic to humans.
This category is used when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. In some cases, an agent (mixture) may be classified in this category when there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals and strong evidence that the carcinogenesis is mediated by a mechanism that also operates in humans. Exceptionally, an agent, mixture or exposure circumstance may be classified in this category solely on the basis of limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.

Group 2B: The agent (mixture) is possibly carcinogenic to humans.

The exposure circumstance entails exposures that are possibly carcinogenic to humans.
This category is used for agents, mixtures and exposure circumstances for which there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and less than sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. It may also be used when there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans but there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. In some instances, an agent, mixture or exposure circumstance for which there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans but limited evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals together with supporting evidence from other relevant data may be placed in this group.

Group 3: The agent (mixture or exposure circumstance) is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans.

This category is used most commonly for agents, mixtures and exposure circumstances for which the evidence of carcinogenicity is inadequate in humans and inadequate or limited in experimental animals. Exceptionally, agents (mixtures) for which the evidence of carcinogenicity is inadequate in humans but sufficient in experimental animals may be placed in this category when there is strong evidence that the mechanism of carcinogenicity in experimental animals does not operate in humans.

Group 4: The agent (mixture) is probably not carcinogenic to humans.

This category is used for agents or mixtures for which there is evidence suggesting lack of carcinogenicity in humans and in experimental animals. In some instances, agents or mixtures for which there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans but evidence suggesting lack of carcinogenicity in experimental animals, consistently and strongly supported by a broad range of other relevant data, may be classified in this group.

futher in next post~

Indoor air pollution (Health Effects)- WHO

2007-10-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

Health effects
Acute lower respiratory infections
There is consistent evidence that exposure to biomass smoke increases the risk of acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) in childhood, particularly pneumonia. Globally, ALRI represent the single most important cause of death in children under 5 years and account for at least 2 million deaths annually in this age group.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Indoor air pollution is considered a risk factor for chronic bronchitis (CB) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD - progressive and incompletely reversible airflow obstruction). The association between exposure to biomass smoke and CB/COPD has been particularly well established for women.

Lung cancer
Smoke from both coal and biomass contains substantial amounts of carcinogens (chemical substances known to increase the risk of cancer). A consistent body of evidence has shown that women exposed to smoke from coal fires in the home have an elevated risk of lung cancer. This effect has not been demonstrated among populations using biomass, but the presence of carcinogens in the smoke implies that the risk may be present.

Other health outcomes
There is emerging evidence which suggests that indoor air pollution in developing countries may also increase the risk of other important child and adult health problems, although this evidence is tentative and based on fewer studies. It includes conditions such as:

low birthweight and perinatal mortality (still births and deaths in the first week of life)
asthma
otitis media (middle ear infection) and other acute upper respiratory infections
tuberculosis
nasopharyngeal cancer
laryngeal cancer
cataract (blindness)
cardiovascular disease
Status of evidence
The table summarizes the status of evidence on the health effects of indoor air pollution.

- The health effects of indoor air pollution exposure in developing countries
Publication by the World Health Organization, 2002.

- Indoor air pollution in developing countries: a major environmental and public health challenge
Article in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2000.

Health impacts of indoor air pollution- WHO

2007-10-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Indoor cooking and heating with biomass fuels (agricultural residues, dung, straw, wood) or coal produces high levels of indoor smoke that contains a variety of health-damaging pollutants.

There is consistent evidence that exposure to indoor air pollution can lead to acute lower respiratory infections in children under five, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer (where coal is used) in adults.

Indoor air pollution- WHO

2007-10-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

More than three billion people worldwide continue to depend on solid fuels, including biomass fuels (wood, dung, agricultural residues) and coal, for their energy needs.

Cooking and heating with solid fuels on open fires or traditional stoves results in high levels of indoor air pollution. Indoor smoke contains a range of health-damaging pollutants, such as small particles and carbon monoxide, and particulate pollution levels may be 20 times higher than accepted guideline values.

According to The world health report 2002 indoor air pollution is responsible for 2.7% of the global burden of disease.

WHO’s Programme on Indoor Air Pollution
To combat this substantial and growing burden of disease, WHO has developed a comprehensive programme to support developing countries. WHO's Programme on Indoor Air Pollution focuses on:

- Research and evaluation
- Capacity building
- Evidence for policy-makers

ANDA SEBAGAI INDIVIDU BOLEH MEMBUAT PERUBAHAN !!!

2007-10-06T15:05:00.001-07:00

ANDA SEBAGAI INDIVIDU BOLEH MEMBUAT PERUBAHAN

1. LAKUKAN PERUBAHAN DI JALAN RAYA

Fikirkan semula jenis sistem pengangkutan yang hendak digunakan.
Amalkan berkongsi kereta / kenderaan bagi perjalanan yang mempunyai tujuan sama
Pertimbangkan sistem pengangkutan awam, berbasikal ataupun berjalan kaki;
Selenggara kenderaan dan pastikan keadaan angin tayar yang baik bagi menjimatkan kos bahan api ;
Pandu kenderaan dengan bijak. Jangan biarkan kenderaan statik dengan enjin kereta! Tutup enjin kenderaan sekiranya tidak bergerak walaupun sekejap – mampu menjimatkan bahan api;
Isi tangki minyak kenderaan pada waktu yang lebih sejuk bagi mengelakkan bahan api terperuwap ke udara .
Gunakan ‘non-ozone depleting refrigerant’ untuk sistem penghawa dingin kenderaan ;
Pastikan bahan pendingin kenderaan dikitar atau diguna semula semasa servis kenderaan. Perbaiki kebocoran sistem penghawa dingin kenderaan ;

2. LAKUKAN PERUBAHAN DI RUMAH

o Gunakan bahan kimia yang terdapat di rumah secara bijak

o Gunakan bahan ‘non-ODS, low VOC paints and solvents’. Pastikan terlebih dahulu membaca panduan penggunaan dan pelupusan bahan tersebut.

o Perbaiki kebocoran sistem penghawa dingin rumah bagi mengelakkan bahan ODS mencemarkan udara;

o Beli sistem penghawa dingin yang mesra alam dan tidak menipiskan laipsan ozon ;

o Jimatkan penggunaan kuasa elektrik ;

o Amalkan pengurusan bahan buangan dengan bijak. Kitar semula tin aluminum, kertas dan kaca ;

o Beli produk yang diperbuat daripada bahan-bahan kitar semula;

o Hentikan pembakaran terbuka.

3. SEKTOR PERINDUSTRIAN BOLEH MEMBUAT PERUBAHAN

Amalkan teknologi bersih ;
Jimat penggunaan kuasa elektrik. Gunakan dan hasilkan produk yang tidak menipiskan lapisan ozon.
Jalankan servis dan penyelenggaraan ke atas mesin-mesin pembuatan.
Hentikan pembakaran terbuka.
Amalkan Teknik Pembakaran Sifar (sektor pertanian).
Kurangkan penggunaan racun makhluk perosak yang tidak mesra alam (sektor pertanian).

Langkah-langkah Kawalan PENCEMARAN UDARA oleh JAS

2007-10-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

JAS menguatkuasakan undang-undang yang diperuntukkan di bawah Akta Kualiti Alam Sekeliling 1974 dan Bahagian IV Akta Zon Eksklusif Ekonomi 1984 ;

Bagi memastikan prestasi pematuhan industri, JAS sentiasa mengadakan lawatan penguatkuasaan ke kilang-kilang/punca tetap.

Melaksanakan operasi asap hitam terhadap pengguna-pengguna kenderaan di jalanraya ;

Kemudahan Yang Diluluskan ;

Statistik Penguatkuasaan .

JAS dari masa ke semasa mengadakan rondaan darat dan udara untuk menyiasat / mengesan aktiviti pecemaran udara

Pengawasan kualiti udara secara berterusan (24jam) bagi mengesan sebarang perubahan kepada kandungan kimia udara ambien yang boleh membahayakan kesihatan manusia.

JAS menganjurkan beberapa siri program kempen kesedaran berkaitan lapisan ozon kepada orang awam dan sektor industri ;

Menjalankan kajian kerjasama dengan pihak-pihak berkaitan bagi mengawal pencemaran udara ;

Terlibat dalam mesyuarat / protokol / komitmen dalam penjagaan alam sekitar di peringkat antarabangsa.

PUNCA PENCEMARAN UDARA MALAYSIA- autoriti Jabatan Alam Sekitar, Malaysia

2007-10-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

1. PENDAHULUAN

Bumi secara semulajadinya menerima beban pencemaran udara daripada fenomena alam semulajadi seperti letupan gunung berapi, pembakaran hutan akibat dari panahan petir dan sebagainya. Walaubagaimanapun, Bumi mempunyai 'kaedah semulajadi' bagi menangani pencemaran semulajadi ini. Apabila manusia mula menjalankan aktiviti perindustrian mahupun aktiviti harian, pencemaran alam sekitar semakin berleluasa dan Bumi tidak mampu lagi 'memikul' beban pencemaran tersebut.

2. AKTIVITI PERINDUSTRIAN & PEMBANGUNAN

Perkembangan ekonomi Malaysia bergantung kepada industri pembuatan, terutamanya elektronik, kimia dan juga getah. Namun kadar pengeluaran yang kian meningkat telah menyebabkan penambahan pada pelepasan pencemaran gas organik dan bukan organik, bahan kimia dan juga habuk. Pelbagai jenis industri menghasilkan bahan cemar yang berbeza. Contohnya industri kimia melepaskan pencemar yang mengandungi pelbagai kompaun yang berasaskan nitrogen dan sulfur, manakala kilang penapis minyak mengeluarkan asap yang mengandungi sulfur dioksida dan hidrokarbon. Industri logam pula bertanggungjawab mencemarkan udara dengan sulfur dioksida dan habuk toksik. Sesetengah bahan pencemar, terutamanya karbon dioksida adalah merupakan gas rumah hijau yang amat memudaratkan boleh mengakibatkan perubahan iklim seluruh dunia.

Selain pelepasan bahan toksik ke udara, pembangunan premis atau zon industri tanpa perancangan teliti dan kawalan akan mengakibatkan pencemaran bunyi dan getaran. Aktiviti di tapak pembinaan dan bunyi kipas ekzos di kilang-kilang adalah antara contoh-contoh aktiviti yang menghasilkan paras bunyi yang tinggi.

3. KENDERAAN MOTOR

Masyarakat moden amat bergantung kepada pengangkutan bermotor seperti kereta, lori dan keretapi. Setiap pergerakan kenderaan motor menggunakan tenaga yang banyak dan hampir kesemuanya dihasilkan dengan membakar bahan api fosil, yang menghasilkan asap dan bunyi bising yang membawa kesan buruk kepada keadaan setempat. Kualiti udara persekitaran amat bergantung kepada jenis sistem pengangkutan yang digunakan, jenis sumber tenaga, tahap teknologi enjin dan juga jumlah tenaga yang diperlukan. Di dalam sektor pengangkutan, kenderaan motor adalah penyumbang utama kepada pencemaran udara. Penggunaan pengangkutan awam akan mengurangkan impak pencemaran ke atas alam sekitar. Dalam tahun 2004, 14 juta kenderaan berdaftar digunakan di Malaysia, angka ini dua kali ganda berbanding dengan sedekad lalu. Angka ini akan terus meningkat dari tahun ke tahun dengan meningkatnya pendapatan, pemindahan luar bandar ke bandar dan kekurangan kemudahan pengangkutan awam yang cekap.

4. PENJANAAN KUASA

Hampir kesemua tenaga elektrik dihasilkan dengan membakar bahan api fosil seperti gas asli, minyak dan arang batu. Loji-loji janakuasa jenis ini mempunyai tahap kecekepan antara 35 dan 40 peratus di mana tenaga selebihnya bertukar menjadi haba. Pada masa ini, Malaysia menjana 86 peratus keperluan tenaga elektriknya melalui loji janakuasa konvensional manakala baki 14 peratus dihasilkan oleh stesen janakuasa hidro.

5. AKTIVITI HARIAN

Isi rumah menyumbang kepada pencemaran melalui penggunaan tenaga untuk mesin dan perkakas elektrik seperti peti sejuk. Peti sejuk dan penyaman udara bukan sahaja menggunakan banyak tenaga tetapi alat-alat ini juga mencemarkan udara apabila cecair penyejuk yang digunakan melepaskan Klorofluorokarban (CFC) ke udara seterusnya menipiskan lapisan ozon. Peralatan rumah seperti penyembur aerosol yang mengandungi CFC juga adalah punca pencemaran udara.

6. PEMBAKARAN TERBUKA

Pembakaran pokok tua di kawasan ladang untuk tujuan penanaman semula banyak partikel jelaga. Partikel jelaga ini boleh diterbangkan pada jarak yang jauh oleh angin dan inilah punca jerebu yang kerap menyelubunyi ruang udara Malaysia. Api dari pembakaran ini bukan sahaja menghasilkan asap yang mencemarkan tetapi ia juga memusnahkan segala fauna dan flora di sekitarnya

Pengenalan Kepada Udara- menurut autoriti Jabatan Alam Sekitar, Malaysia

2007-10-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

1. APAKAH ATMOSFERA ?

Atmosfera ialah lapisan gas yang menyelaputi bumi. Ia kekal dan stabil di sekelilingi bumi kerana graviti. Ia mempunyai ketebalan 100km. Walaupun ia agak nampak tebal, namun sekiranya dibandingkan dengan ketebalan bumi iaitu 6,400km, nisbahnya adalah sama seperti buah pic dan kulitnya. Atmosfera atau lebuh dikenali sebagai udara adalah campuran pelbagai jenis gas, partikal pepejal dan wap air. Udara mempunyai ketumpatan yang tinggi di paras permukaan bumi yang kita tinggal tetapi ketumpatannya menjadi semakin rendah apabila semakin bergerak tinggi ke atas atmosfera. Planet-planet lain juga mempunyai atmosfera tetapi setakat yang diketahui tiada yang mampu menampung kehidupan.

2. KANDUNGAN UDARA BERSIH

Kandungan utama udara di atmosfera ialah Nitrogen (78%), Oksigen (21%), dan lain-lain gas (1%). Oksigen adalah satu keperluan asas bagi hamper semua benda hidup. Kesemua elemen lain yang ditonjolkan di dalam graf di bawah juga memainkan peranan yang penting dalam menampung kehidupan di bumi. Selain itu, air juga merupakan satu komponen atmosfera yang penting dan ia hadir dalam bentuk wap air yang tersejat dari permukaan Bumi. Daripada wap air ini terbentuklah awan yang akhirnya mengembalikan air ke muka bumi sebagai hujan atau salji. Komponen lain dalam udara ialah partikel pepejal yang halus. Partikel-partikel ini dikenali sebagai ‘aerosol’ dan ia bertindak sebagai condenser membolehkan wap air terpeluap di sekelilingnya dan membolehkan pembentukan awan. Setiap kali bahan pencemar dilepaskan ke armosfera, bererti kita mengganggu kestabilan semulajadi planet kita.

3. BUNYI DAN GETARAN

Bunyi adalah sebahagian daripada alam dan bergerak dalam udara. Bunyi bising adalah pencemaran kerana ia adalah satu bentuk kacau ganggu kepada semua benda hidup. Semua struktur yang bergetar menghasilkan bunyi. Julat mendengar bagi seorang manusia normal dan sihat adalah masing-masing 20 Hz sehingga 20,000 Hz dan 0 dB sehingga 130 dB. Paras bunyi yang melebihi 130 dB akan menyebabkan deria pendengaran manusia mula berasa sakit. Paras getaran bangunan kurang 3 mm/s adalah selamat , manakala paras getaran melebihi 30 mm/s akan menyebabkan kerosakan infrastruktur yang sangat teruk dan besar.

4. STRUKTUR LAPISAN ATMOSFERA
Jika anda mendongak ke langit pada hari yang cerah selalunya anda akan melihat langit yang biru dengan kepulan putih awan terapung-apung dan bergerak perlahan-lahan. Apa yang anda tidak boleh lihat ialah struktur menegak atmosfera yang terdiri daripada 4 lapisan yang dipanggil troposfera, stratosfera, mesosfera dan termosfera. Suhu udara akan meningkat atau menurun di setiap lapisan dan sifatnya berubah di setiap lapisan. Troposfera mempunyai ketebalan dari 9 hingga 16 kilometer dan kebanyakan aktiviti cuaca seperti pembentukan awan dan rebut berlaku di zon ini. Suhu menurun mengikut ketinggian di lapisan ini.

5. PERNAFASAN & OKSIGEN
Dengan setiap nafas yang kita sedut, sel-sel badan diberi tenaga untuk bergerak, membina dan mengganda bagi memastikan kita terus hidup. Udara memasuki paru-paru melalui hidung dan mulut. Di dalam paru-paru ianya diserap ke dalam aliran darah dan kemuidan dibawa ke seluruh badan. Karbon dioksida kemudiannya dipulangkan ke paru-paru dan dikeluarkan daripada badan kita apabila nafas dihembus. Tanpa tumbuhan yang menghasilkan oksigen, manusia dan haiwan tidak boleh terus hidup. Oleh kerana itu kita harus memastikan tumbuh-tumbuhan dipelihara dengan baik.

6. FOTOSINTESIS & OKSIGEN
Fotosintesis yang berlaku dalam tumbuh-tumbuhan berdaun hijau dengan bantuan klorofil adalah satu keajaiban. Ia bermula apabila tumbuhan dan rumpai menyerap cahaya matahari dan menukarnya kepada tenaga kimia. Karbon dioksida dari atmosfera dan air kemudiannya ditukarkan kepada gula manakala oksigen pula dihasilkan sebagai bahan buangan. Tumbuh-tumbuhan memerlukan gula untuk membesar dan akhirnya menjadi makanan untuk manusia dan haiwan.

7. KESAN RUMAH HIJAU SEMULAJADI

Dengan “kesan rumah hijau semulajadi”, suhu udara di permukaan bumi dikekalkan pada purata +150C. Tanpa kesan ini, kesejukan ketara pada tahap -180C akan menjadi satu kebiasaan dan kepelbagaian hidupan di biosfera tidak mungkin boleh berkembang. Gelombang pendek pancaran matahari menembusi bumi dengan kuasa yang hebat. Atmosfera, kepulan awan permukaan bumi memantulkan satu pertiga daripada tenaga radiasi ini. Selebihnya menembusi atmosfera lalu memanaskan bumi. Bumi kemudiannya memancarkan kembali tenaga in sebagai radiasi infra merah. Gas surih ataupun gas rumah hijau yang terdapat di atmosfera, terutamanya wap air, karbon dioksida dan metana menyerap gelombang panjang ini dan memancarkannya kembali ke angkasa lepas dan juga kembali ke muka bumi. Dengan ini ia bertindak seperti seperti kepingan kaca pada sebuah rumah hijau, dan permukaan bumi akan menjadi lebih panas. Kesan daripada aktiviti industri di peringkat global mengakibatkan bertambahnya kandungan gas rumah hijau di atmosfera dalam dekad yang lepas. Akibatnya ialah “kesan rumah hijau tambahan” yang mungkin akan mengubah iklim bumi.

8. PERISAI MATAHARI

Matahari memancarkan tenaga dalam bentuk haba (radiasi infra merah), dan cahaya yang boleh dilihat atau radiasi ultra ungu (UV). UV terpancar dengan gelombang yang pendek dan bertenaga tinggi dan diklasifikasikan sebagai UVC, UVB dan UVA. UVC sangat merbahaya dan mampu membunuh semua kehidupan termasuk bacteria dan lain-lain mikro organisma. UVA boleh menggelapkan kulit manakala UVB bertanggungjawab membakar kulit dan boleh menyebabkan penyakit kanser kulit. Kita bernasib baik kerana UVC diserap sepenuhnya oleh oksigen yang berada di atas lapisan stratosfera. Kebanyakan UVB diserap oleh ozon yang berada di stratosfera selagi mana ianya cukup tebal untuk fungsi tersebut. Hanya Pancaran UVA boleh menembusi atmosfera dengan mudah dan tanpa disekat.

PERATURAN KAWALAN PENCEMARAN UDARA DI BAWAH AKTA KUALITI ALAM SEKELILING 1974

2007-10-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

1. SENARAI PERATURAN – PERATURAN KAWALAN PENCEMARAN UDARA DI BAWAH AKTA KUALITI ALAM SEKELILING 1974

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Udara Bersih) 1978;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Kawalan Kepekatan Plumbum ) 1987;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Bunyi Bising Kenderaan Motor) 1985;

Perintah Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Larangan ke Atas Penggunaan Klorofluokarbon dan Lain-Lain Gas Sebagai Propelan dan Agen Pengembang) 1993;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Kawalan Pelepasan Daripada Enjin Diesel) 1996;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Kawalan Pelepasan Daripada Enjin Petrol) 1996;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Pengurusan Refrigeran) 1999;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Pengurusan Halon) 1999;

Kaedah-kaedah Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Mengkompaun Kesalahan-Kesalahan) (Pembakaran Terbuka) 2000;

Perintah Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Perwakilan Kuasa) (Penyiasatan Pembakaran Terbuka) 2000;

Perintah Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Perwakilan Kuasa) (Pengurusan Halon) 2000;

Perintah Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Perwakilan Kuasa) (Perbadanan Putrajaya)2002;

Perintah Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Aktiviti Yang Diisytiharkan) (Pembakaran Terbuka) 2003

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Kawalan Pelepasan Daripada Motosikal) 2003;

Peraturan-Peraturan Kualiti Alam Sekeliling (Dioksin Dan Furan) 2004.

SENARAI GARISPANDUAN BERKAITAN PENCEMARAN UDARA

The Planning Guidelines for Environmental Noise Limits and Control (2004);

The Guidelines for Noise Labeling and Emission Limits of Outdoor Source (2004);

The Planning Guidelines for Vibration Limits and Control (2004).

MALAYSIA'S ODS HISTORY / MAIN EVENTS

2007-10-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

MALAYSIA'S ODS HISTORY / MAIN EVENTS

October 1985

Establishment of the National Steering Committee (NSC) for the Protection of the Ozone Layer.

5 May 1989

Malaysia Participated in the First Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, Helsinki, Finland.

29 August 1989

Ratified the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

20-23 February 1990

International Conference on Tropical Ozone and Atmospheric Change, Penang.

20 June 1990

Malaysia elected as a member of EXCOM for the year 1991-1993 in the Second Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, London.

23 March 1991

Malaysia's First ODS Country Programme and Phase-Out Project Approved by the Multilateral Fund.

18 June 1991

Malaysia elected as Vice President of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Nairobi for the year 1992.

8 November 1992

First Phase-Out Project Agreement Signed by EPU.

8 January 1993

Launching of Ozone Monitoring Station by Meteorological Services Department (MSD).

25 February 1993

Launching of Joint Initiative on Elimination of ODS between the Government, USEPA and JEMA.

24-26 April 1993

KL-USEPA Conference on the Elimination of ODS Solvent Industry.

5 August 1993

Malaysia Ratified the London Amendment (1990).

18 September 1993

Announcement on Control of ODS Under Application Permit System.

23 October 1993

Malaysia elected as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Multilateral Fund in Bangkok for the year 1994. Malaysia reelected as a member of the EXCOM for the year 1994.

3 November 1993

Malaysia Ratified the Copenhagen Amendment (1992).

31 December 1993

Gazettment of Environmental Quality (Prohibition on the Use of Chlorofluorocarbons and Halon and Other Gases as Propellants and Blowing Agents) Order 1993.

21 June 1994

Launching of Agreement on MAC Recycling Project.

6 October 1994

Malaysia elected as Vice President of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Nairobi for the year 1995.

20 December 1994

Inaugaral Malaysia Ozone Layer Protection Award (MOLPA).

28 October 1999

Gazetted of Environmental Quality (Refrigeration Management) Regulations 1999.

28 October 1999

Gazetted of Environmental Quality (Halon Management) Regulations 1999.

5 October 2001

Malaysia Ratified the 1997 Montreal Amendment and 1999 Beijing Amendment.

25 Mac 2003

36th Meeting of National Steering Committee on Ozone Protection.

19 May 2003
Working Group on MDI.

13 June 2003

Briefing on Refrigerant and Halon Management Regulation to PETRONAS, Kuala Lumpur.

6-7 July 2003

ASEAN Working Group on Multilateral Environmental Agreements, Kuala Lumpur.

7-11 July 2003
23rd OEWG Meeting, Montreal.

31 July 2003

Seminar ODS Phase-Out Programme (NCFC/P) 2000-2010, Putrajaya.

27-28 August 2003

Refrigerant Recovery, Reclaimation and Recycling Training Course, Shah Alam.

13-19 September 2003

MEAs Workshop – Compliance and Enforcement, Colombo.

15-25 September 2003
Dissemination on ODS in Formations.

25 September 2003

Meeting with ODS Chemical Supplier Individually.

26 September 2003
Meeting with Foam Sector.

27 September 2003
Meeting with CFC Distributors.

29 September –

2 October 2003
Asia Pasific Methyl Bromide Alternative/ Phosphine, Ho Chi Minh City.

6 October 2003

37th Meeting of National Steering Committee on Ozone Protection.

8-11 October 2003
2003 ODSONET Meeting, Phuket.

13-15 October 2003

Workshop on Control and Monitoring of ODS-Custom Consumption, Phuket.

16 October 2003

MAC Sector-air-cond workshop/refrigerants/ compressor distributors.

17 October 2003
Meeting with Refrigeration Sector.

18 October 2003
Meeting with Solvent Sector.

22 October 2003

Briefing and roundtable discussion on MAC Servicing Sector CFC Phase-Out, Putrajaya.

23 October 2003

Seminar HCFC Alternative and Energy Improvered, Putrajaya.

21-25 October 2003
Dissemination of poster, leaflets on ozone protection during Malaysia Environment Week celebration.

27-30 October 2003

Training for operator handling R&R MAC Servicing Workshop, Shah Alam.

8-14 November 2003
15th COP Meeting of MP, Nairobi.

10 November 2003
Working Group on MDI.

20 Disember 2003
Working Group on Refrigeration

Information on Air Pollutant Index - DOE MALAYSIA

2007-10-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

Pengukuran Kualiti Udara- Jabatan Meteorologi Malaysia [MOSTI]

2007-10-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

LAPORAN TAHUNAN KUALITI UDARA

1. Pengenalan

Sejumlah 22 stesen Rangkaian Pemonitoran Pencemaran Udara terletak di Semenanjung Malaysia dan Malaysia Timur. Bermula dengan hanya 2 stesen pada 1976, rangkaian ini telah berkembang tahun demi tahun. Pada masa yang sama, sejajar dengan keperluan semasa, parameter-parameter telah ditambah di dalam program pemerhatian ini di stesen-stesen terpilih. Kebanyakan stesen-stesen ini terletak agak jauh dari kawasan bandar bagi memastikan hanya keadaan ambien sahaja di pantau. (Rajah 1)

Kebanyakan stesen-stesen ini didirikan di kawasan sama dengan stesen klimatologi supaya pemerhatian kedua-dua parameter meteorologi dan pencemaran udara boleh dibuat serentak dan berterusan. Dengan ini memastikan set data yang komprehensif mengandungi kedua-dua data kualiti udara dan meteorologi boleh didapati bagi tujuan penilaian sebarang episod pencemaran udara.

Bahagian Kajian Alam Sekitar di Perkhidmatan Kajicuaca Malaysia menjalankan pemantauan kualiti udara di seluruh negara dan menilai data-data yang dikumpul dari rangkaiannya. Data dari rangkaian ini digunakan untuk mendokumentasikan arah aliran jangka-panjang dan mengesan perubahan signifikan dalam kepekatan udara untuk memberi amaran awal bencana alam sekitar.

Parameter-parameter yang diukurkan oleh Bahagian adalah:

Keasidan Air Hujan.

Aerosol.
Ozon Atmosfera.
Gas-gas Reaktif.

2. Keasidan Air Hujan

Pengukuran tetap dan bermetodologi komposisi kimia air hujan melalui rangkaian stesen dalam tempoh masa yang panjang memberi petunjuk kualiti udara termasuk arah aliran keasidan dalam negara serta mengenalpasti kawasan yang sedang menghadapi peningkatan amaun komponen basahan pemendapan berasid. Pengukuran tersebut akan menyumbang ke arah penentuan spesies keasidan bagi fluks pemendapan basah dan kering di tapak pengukuran yang mana akan menghala kepada pemahaman yang mendalam terhadapa isu-isu pengasidan atmosfera di rantau ini.

Biasanya keasidan air hujan dilaporkan sebagai pH. pH adalah pengukuran kepekatan ion hydrogen dalam cecair dan mempunyai skala di antara 0 - 14. Air hujan dari tapak yang bersih dan terpencil sedikit berasid dengan pH yang berubah antara 5.2 ke 6.0 disebabkan kehadiran asid semulajadi yang terlarut; oleh itu hujan dikatakan berasid jika pH kurang dari 5.2. Memandangkan jumlah air hujan berubah-ubah, kesemua nilai pH adalah volume weighted.

Perkhidmatan Kajicuaca Malaysia menggunakan sama ada Automatic Wet and Dry Fallout Collector atau Wet-Only Sampler untuk mengumpul air hujan di rangkaian ini. Sampel-sampel air hujan dikumpul dalam seminggu dan dihantar ke Jabatan Kimia Malaysia untuk analisa kimia terhadap anion dan kation prinsipal. Sejenis biosid, thymol digunakan untuk mencegah penguraian biologi.

pH Tahunan

Rajah 2 menunjukkan peta pH air hujan bagi tahun 2002. Amnya, negeri-negeri di bahagian baratan dan selatan Semenanjung Malaysia menerima hujan dengan kepekatan keasidan yang tinggi manakala bahagian-bahagian lain Semenanjung menerima hujan dengan pH antara 4.4 dan 5.2. Kawasan-kawasan yang mengalami tahap keasidan yang tinggi adalah sekitar Lembah Klang dan selatan Johor. Secara kebetulan, ini adalah kawasan-kawasan pembangunan dan perindustrian yang pesat dengan kepadatan penduduk yang tinggi.

Variasi pH Bulanan

Rajah 3 menunjukkan pH bulanan. Dari urutan peta-peta tersebut, secara amnya hujan dari kawasan pantai barat Semenanjung Malaysia lebih berasid berbanding kawasan pantai timur Semenanjung Malaysia dan keasidan air hujannya adalah tinggi semasa bulan Mac hingga Oktober. Pada bulan-bulan ini, bahagian utara baratan Semenanjung Malaysia menerima air hujan dengan pH antara 4.4 - 4.8 manakala bahagian tengah dan selatan menerima air hujan dengan pH kurang dari 4.4. Pada amnya, pH air hujan di Malaysia Timur adalah antara 4.8 - 5.6.

3. Aerosol

Aerosol atau jumlah zarah terampai (TSP) adalah zarah ampaian dalam udara dengan diameter kurang dari 100 mikrometer (m). TSP dengan diameter aerodinamik 10 mikrometer atau kurang digelar zarah PM10 dan ia boleh menjejaskan kesihatan.

Zarah Terampai Total (TSP)

Kepekatan TSP di ukur dengan menggunakan High-Volume Air Sampler di 14 stesen. Rajah 4 menunjukkan arah aliran muatan bulanan TSP. Kepekatan TSP di kebanyakan stesen adalah hampir kepada nilai purata jangka-panjang kecuali Alor Setar, Perai, Kuala Trengganu, Senai dan Bintulu yang mana menunjukkan paras agak tinggi dalam tahun 2002.

Jisim Zarah (PM-10)

Kepekatan Zarah PM-10 diukur di 8 stesen di rangkaian pemonitoran dengan menggunakan High-Volume PM-10 Sampler. Rajah 5 menunjukkan arah aliran bulanan kepekatan PM-10. Paras PM-10 yang dicatatkan di kesemua stesen hampir kepada nilai purata jangka-panjang.

4. Ozon Atmosfera

Ozon adalah gas yang sangat reaktif, dalam kuantiti yang sedikit di atmosfera. Kepekatan min boleh berubah dari sedikit hingga ratusan bahagian per billion (ppb) bergantung pada lokasi dan altitud. Di paras permukaan, ozon dianggap bahan pencemar sekunder yang menyebabkan episod-episod oksidan seperti jerebu dan asbut (smog). Di stratosfera, lapisan ozon mengurangkan kemudaratan radiasi ultra-lembayung yang menghampiri permukaan bumi. Secara global, ozon adalah gas rumah hijau yang menyumbang kepada pemanasan global.

Kolum Ozon Total (Total Ozone Column)

Kolum Ozon total harian di pantau secara automatik di Petaling Jaya dengan menggunakan alat Brewer Spectrophotometer. Rajah 6 menunjukkan pengukuran langsung matahari. Amaun Kolum Ozon Total yang diukur berubah antara 239 hingga 282 Dobson Unit (DU). Terdapat variasi bermusim dalam kepekatan ozon tetapi ia tidak begitu ketara seperti di kawasan-kawasan latitud tengah.

Profil Ozon Tegak (Vertical Ozone Profile )

Profil ozon tegak diukur di Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur (KLIA), Sepang dengan menggunakan sonar ozon (ozonesonde) yang dilepaskan pada setiap awal dan pertengahan bulan. Rajah 7 menunjukkan min bulanan profil ozon tegak. Profil-profil ozon menunjukkan minimum pada 15 kilometer atas paras laut (MSL) yang sepadan dengan lapisan atas tropopaus tropika. Atas 15 kilometer, paras ozon bertambah dengan mendadak hingga maksimum lebih kurang 27 km atas paras laut min.

5. Gas-gas Reaktif

Sekarang ini, Perkhidmatan Kajicuaca Malaysia memantau gas-gas sulfur dioksida (SO2) dan nitrogen dioksida (NO2) di Petaling Jaya dan Tanah Rata menggunakan pasif sampler.

Rajah 8 menunjukkan kepekatan mingguan bagi SO2 dan NO2 yang diukur di Petaling Jaya. Kepekatan SO2 berubah-ubah antara julat 2.0 ppb dan 9.0 ppb sepanjang tahun dengan tiada perbezaan mengikut musim. Kepekatan NO2 adalah tinggi dan berubah-ubah antara julat 14.5 ppbv dan 40.5 ppbv.

Rajah 9 menunjukkan kepekatan SO2 dan NO2 diukur di Tanah. Pada amnya, kepekatan gas-gas ini adalah rendah, jarang melampaui 3.1 ppbv.

continue- Indonesia in a haze over hotspots

2007-10-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

Indonesia in a haze over hotspots

2007-10-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Our Children At Risk

2007-09-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

AIR POLLUTION
INTRODUCTION
Clean air is a delicate balance of nitrogen and oxygen, with small amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and other gases. Unfortunately, pollutants are altering this mixture by adding myriad ingredients which alone and in concert pose health risks to everyone who breathes the air, particularly children. In fact, children represent the largest subgroup of the population susceptible to the effects of air pollution.[1] Over the last ten years, a considerable number of scientific studies have reported adverse health effects associated with air pollution. The effects have ranged from respiratory symptoms and illness, impaired lung function, hospitalization for respiratory and cardiac disease to increases in mortality.[2]

A recent study estimated that approximately 64,000 people in the United States die prematurely from heart and lung disease every year due to particulate air pollution -- more people than die each year in car accidents.[3] Among children, air pollutants are associated with increased acute respiratory illness, increased incidence of respiratory symptoms and infections, episodes of longer duration, and lowered lung function.[4]

Asthma, the most common chronic disorder of childhood, is on the rise in the United States and in other industrialized nations. During the 1980s, the prevalence of childhood asthma increased nearly 40 percent.[5] Many different factors have been associated with asthma, including genetic makeup, environmental tobacco smoke, dust mites, cockroach allergens, and air pollution, both indoor and outdoor. Several studies have linked ozone and particulate air pollution with exacerbations of asthma in children afflicted with the disease.

Due to their greater respiratory rates, children breathe a proportionately greater volume of air than adults. As a result, children inhale more pollutants per pound of body weight. They also spend more time engaged in vigorous activity than adults. In addition, because of young children's height and play habits (crawling, rolling) they are more likely to be exposed to pollutants or aerosols that are heavier than air and tend to concentrate in their breathing zone near ground level.[6] Children's physiological vulnerability to air pollution arises from their narrower airways and the fact that their lungs are still developing. Irritation caused by air pollutants that would produce only a slight response in an adult can result in potentially significant obstruction in the airways of a young child.

The harm caused by air pollutants has been recognized by medical scientists, government officials, and the public for some time. Historic air pollution disasters -- Meuse Valley, Belgium in 1930, Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948, and London, England in 1952 -- in which large numbers of people fell ill and died, have been clearly associated with high concentrations of particulate and sulfur dioxide pollution.[7] Such acute air pollution episodes have killed children because of their heightened susceptibility to the damage that can be done by air pollutants.[8]

Existing stationary sources of air pollution include coal combustion for power production, oil refineries, and industrial manufacturing facilities. Additional sources of air pollution have emerged; today automobiles are a major polluter of the air: Americans drive some 150 million private cars and nearly 50 million buses and trucks.[9] The exhaust from these vehicles contains nitrogen oxides, and other ozone precursors, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide -- all deleterious to health, even in small quantities. Also of importance in vehicle exhaust are toxic organic compounds including formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and benzene. And, even though new cars start out far cleaner than the cars of decades ago, we drive them far more and they fail to remain clean as they age.

To protect citizens, the federal government began setting standards for ambient air quality as early as the 1950s. In 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the first major national law for air pollution control throughout the United States. This Act, amended in 1977 and 1990, requires the EPA to establish national health standards for ambient air pollutants and to assure that states adopt effective programs for attaining these standards. The most successful parts of the Act, such as the acid rain program, the ozone depletion program, and the introduction of emission standards for automobiles and the reformulation of fuels, established very specific federal standards. Yet these standards are not enough. In 1995, about 127 million Americans -- half of the nation's population -- lived in regions with air quality that did not meet federal standards for certain pollutants.[12] Based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates of the population by age group, 18 million children under the age of ten lived in these "nonattainment" areas. The health risks from air pollution are greatest in these regions, and those at greatest risk include children.

Citizens must seek additional remedies to assure the health of their families in the face of increasing air pollution threats. Toward that end, this chapter describes scientific research on the health effects of air pollutants on children, suggested measures that concerned parents and others can take, and model programs of local solutions that have worked throughout the nation, as well as government reforms that should be supported.

BACKGROUND: HOW LUNGS WORK

Children: The Most Vulnerable Among Us

The nation has failed to protect its most precious citizens -- its children -- from the adverse health effects of air pollution. Emission reduction efforts and federal air quality standards have been insufficient to shield children from potentially serious health damage.[13] Ozone and particulate matter are of special concern. In June 1993, the Committee on Environmental Hazards of the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that the federal standard for ozone in effect at that time contained "little or no margin of safety for children engaged in active outdoor activity."[14] In July 1997, the EPA revised both the ozone and particulate matter air quality standards in order to protect children and other members of the population. The American Lung Association estimated that 27 million children under the age of 13 reside in areas with ozone levels above EPA's revised standard, and that two million children with asthma, or half of the pediatric asthma population under the age of eighteen, lived in these areas.[15]

HAZARDS OF AIR POLLUTION
Cellular Damage

Even short-term exposure to low levels of pollutants can damage lungs at the cellular level. For instance:

Sulfuric acid compounds can interfere with the lungs' mucociliary clearance system,[16] and ozone at levels below the pre-1997 federal ozone standards may hinder the immune system's ability to defend against infection.[17]

Ozone exposure at levels below the pre-1997 federal standards contributes to persistent inflammation of airways, sometimes days after exposure ceases.[18] Exposure to acidic aerosols may aggravate the effect.[19]

Sulfur dioxide can induce bronchial constriction in asthmatics.[20]

Even short-term ozone exposure increases lung cell permeability, which may hinder the body's ability to regulate the movement of gases and liquids between the lungs and the bloodstream. This effect potentially facilitates the body's uptake of inhaled substances and may promote enhanced allergic sensitization.[21]

Reduced Lung Function

Lungs must inhale and exhale an adequate volume of air to remove carbon dioxide and replenish oxygen to maintain health, but studies show that even brief exposure to pollutants can result in impairment of lung function. These effects are generally temporary, but they are still of great importance, for two reasons. Chief among these is that the impairment of lung function may be a sign of invisible, sub-clinical damage inside the lungs, such as inflammation produced deep in the lungs from ozone, as discussed above. Though the impairment of lung function generally disappears after exposure, it may mask continuing cellular damage. Secondly, people whose lung function is already compromised may be unable to tolerate additional impairments caused by air pollution, however modest or temporary they might be. The medical literature shows that ozone, sulfur dioxide and sulphate aerosols, and airborne particulate matter affect lung function, and that chronic exposure to air pollutants can impair lung function permanently.[22]

Respiratory Illness and Asthma

Breathing polluted air increases a person's chances for respiratory illness. Epidemiological studies show a significant correlation between exposure to air pollution and the frequency of respiratory symptoms -- ranging from cough symptoms to hospital admission.[23]

Currently affecting at least 6 percent of American children, asthma is the number one cause of absenteeism for school children.[24] During the 1980s, asthma incidence among children increased by nearly 40 percent.[25] One study estimated the total costs -- both direct and indirect -- related to asthma in the young and old in 1990 to be $6.2 billion.[26] Asthmatics suffer recurrent attacks of breathing distress caused by temporary inflammation and constriction of the airways. In many cases, asthma is caused by an allergic response that develops as a result of the airways becoming sensitized to one or several substances.

Common air pollutants, especially ozone, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, present a challenge to asthmatics. A considerable body of scientific evidence links increases in levels of these pollutants to worsening of asthma (increased emergency room visits, increased medication use, increased hospitalization, and increased symptoms.)[27] Some of the investigations reveal asthma exacerbations occurring at pollutant levels at or below the pre-1997 federal air pollution standards. In one case, hospital emergency visits rose by 37 percent on days when ozone reached hourly concentrations of 0.11 parts per million (ppm), which is below the pre-1997 federal standard.[28]

Higher Mortality Rates

Research on mortality rates in heavily polluted areas reveals statistically significant links between high levels of air pollutants and increased numbers of deaths, primarily among the elderly. Particulates show the clearest link, and elevated death rates have been found even at particulate concentrations that are well below the pre-1997 federal health standards; death rates start to inch upward when particulates reach levels below the pre-1997 federal standard.[29]

In December 1993, Harvard researchers published the results of a sixteen-year-long community health study that tracked the health of 8,000 adults in six U.S. cities with differing levels of air pollution. After adjusting for age and smoking, researchers found that residents of the most polluted city had a 26 percent higher mortality rate than those living in the least polluted city.[30] This translated into a one- to two-year shorter lifespan for residents of the most polluted cities.[31] Another major study corroborated these findings. The study correlated American Cancer Society data on the health of 1.2 million adults with air pollution data in 151 U.S. metropolitan areas. The study found that people living in the most polluted area had a 17 percent greater risk of mortality than people living in the least polluted city.[32]

Long-Term Effects of Chronic Exposure A variety of animal studies suggest that long-term exposure to air pollution damages lung cells.[33] In one animal study, researchers found that low-level ozone exposure resulted in the progression of lung injury into structural changes.[34] Acute inflammation in the animals' lungs evolved into chronic inflammation, with healing by a process known as fibrosis, or scarring that stiffens the lung and may make it less capable of efficient gas exchange.

Corresponding evidence from epidemiological research includes one study of humans who were exposed to elevated ozone levels over several days. Lung function loss persisted for a week after exposure, which suggested to researchers that cell death and inflammatory reactions were involved, not just reflex airway constriction.[35]

Chronic exposure to air pollutants may reduce lung capacity. The most comprehensive study was performed on populations living in two different parts of the Los Angeles Basin. People living in the more polluted area had substantially worse lung function than when they were initially tested, and they showed a significantly more rapid deterioration of lung function over time.[36] Chronic exposure to a mixture of air pollutants, as shown in this study, results in less rapid growth of lung function in children and a greater rate of deterioration in adulthood.

In addition, a lifetime of exposure to air pollution may lead to premature aging of the lungs. The aging process in the lungs, which occurs naturally throughout adulthood, is marked by increased deposits of scar tissue, and it may render the lung tissue less elastic and less efficient in delivering oxygen to the blood. Ozone is strongly implicated in the premature aging of lungs. For instance, research on laboratory animals shows that common ozone exposure can lead to a variety of changes in lung tissue, including changes in the structure of the cells that line the smallest airways, such as death of the ciliated cells that are critical in the lung's defense system against particles and bacteria,[37] reduced ability to remove foreign material,[38] inflammation,[39] biochemical changes that suggest damage to tissues and greater permeability of the air sacs,[40] and stiffening of the lung due to the formation of scar tissue.[41]

An autopsy study performed on 107 young accident victims (fourteen to twenty-five years of age) in Southern California, most of them lifelong residents, showed evidence of lung disease. Though few had outward signs of breathing disorders when alive, the lungs of 104 of them showed early signs of chronic lung disease, including low-level bronchitis, chronic interstitial pneumonia, and an unprecedented rate of severe chronic inflammation of the respiratory bronchioles. While the results of this study are not definitive since the subjects were not screened for the use of tobacco or marijuana, one of the researchers commented that the subjects "had lungs of older people," saying that, "air pollution is highly suspect for a substantial contributory role."[42]

Special Vulnerability of Children
During the last decade, hundreds of published reports have documented the effects of air pollutants on children, who are more susceptible than adults to the adverse effects of air pollution. Children's greater sensitivity is a function of both greater exposure to air pollutants and unique physiological susceptibility.

Greater Exposure and Susceptibility

Children breathe more air relative to their body weight and lung surface area than do adults; consequently, they also receive proportionately higher doses of air pollutants.[43] Children spend more time outdoors, often during midday and afternoons when pollutant levels are generally highest.[44] Children are three times more active than adults while outdoors, significantly increasing their oxygen demand and consequently raising their breathing rates.[45]

Young children generally spend more time low to the ground by virtue of both their shorter stature and the nature of their typical physical activity. Children, therefore, experience greater exposure to pollutants emitted close to the ground, such as automobile exhaust and high-density pollutants brought downward by gravity.[46] In addition, when the sources of air pollutants such as automobiles are close to playgrounds and other areas where children play, children and infants in strollers may be heavily exposed.

Children often fail to recognize the significance of respiratory symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath, and they frequently fail to move indoors or curtail exercise during air pollution episodes. Children tend to breathe more through the mouth than through the nose due to their increased physical exertion, thus reducing the effectiveness of one level of filtration. In addition, young children's small noses are easily blocked by congestion, constriction, or other illnesses.

Children's airways have small diameters. Environmental irritants capable of obstructing air passages are more likely to do so in children than in adults.[47] Early in life, children have far fewer alveoli than adults, creating less "reserve volume" from which to draw oxygen. They also have relatively less reserve surface area in their lungs available for times of stress or increased metabolic demand.[48] In adults, air moves from one alveolus to another through holes in the alveoli and channels between the small airways and the alveoli, allowing air to be distributed deeply throughout the lung, circumventing obstructed areas. Infants and young children have few such pathways that provide for this restorative air drift.[49]

Children at greatest risk from the effects of air pollution include: children with sensitized respiratory systems, such as allergic or asthmatic children, children who live near industrial pollution sources, areas of heavy traffic, or in homes with cigarette smokers, and children who lack adequate medical attention, nourishment, or sanitary living conditions.

Adverse Health Effects in Children

Data gathered by a researcher from a variety of recent studies[50] reveals that air pollutants are associated with a wide variety of adverse health effects in children, including:

increased death rates in very severe pollution episodes and increased mortality risks for those living in highly polluted areas,

increased risk of acute respiratory illness,

aggravation of asthma, increased respiratory symptoms, and increased sickness rates (as indicated by kindergarten and school absences), and

decreases in lung function.

Increased Mortality Risk

The most serious effect of air pollution is death. Although the elderly are at greater mortality risk from air pollution, children are also susceptible. In the London air pollution episode in December 1952, mortality in children increased.[51] A new study has found an association in the United States between particulate pollution and an increased risk of infant mortality.[52] A recent report from S‹o Paulo, Brazil, indicated that death in children under the age of five due to respiratory diseases from 1990 to 1991 was positively associated with air pollution levels of nitrogen oxides.[53] In the Czech Republic, the risk of respiratory mortality among infants increased in relation to worsening air pollution (particulates, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide) after adjusting for socioeconomic factors.[54] Researchers in Taiwan found a higher rate of infant mortality from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at times of elevated particulate air pollution as measured by reduced visibility.[55]

Increased Acute Respiratory Illness

Several studies indicate that air pollution is associated with increased acute respiratory illness, as measured by hospital admissions and other indices. Two epidemiological studies, conducted in central Utah, on the relationship between hospital admissions for respiratory illness and ambient air pollution found that admissions were strongly correlated with particulate levels, and that the correlation was especially pronounced in preschool-aged children. In one study, bronchitis and asthma admissions for preschool children were twice as frequent when the local pollution source (steel mill) was operating than when it was shut down.[56] Another study in the same region also indicated that hospital admission for respiratory illness is strongly associated with particulate air pollution and that the association is stronger for children than adults. During months with peak particulate pollution levels, average hospital admissions for respiratory illness in children nearly tripled, whereas for adults comparable hospital admissions increased by 44 percent.[57]

Similarly, researchers found that summertime hospital admissions in Ontario for children are associated with increases in ambient ozone and sulfate levels.[58] Other researchers report that over a six-year period, respiratory admissions were closely associated with ozone levels at 168 hospitals in Ontario. They also showed that 15 percent of summer hospital admissions for infants were associated with air pollution, as compared with 4 percent of such admissions for elderly patients.[59] Studies of hospital admissions in Toronto suggested that increases in ozone, sulfates, aerosol hydrogen ion levels, and particulate air pollution with a diameter of 10 microns or less (PM10) can all be directly correlated to increases in hospital admissions.[60]

In a diary study of 625 Swiss children between birth and five years of age, respiratory symptoms were associated with particulate concentrations, while the duration of symptoms was associated with levels of nitrogen oxide. These symptoms included coughing, upper respiratory episodes, and breathing difficulty.[61]

Another study compared the frequency of upper respiratory infections in Finnish children residing in a polluted city with that in children living in two less polluted cities. The researchers found a significant association between the occurrence of upper respiratory infections and living in an air-polluted area.[62] The finding was consistent in both the fourteen- to eighteen-month-olds and six-year-olds when comparing the polluted city with the reference cities and when comparing the more and less polluted areas within the polluted city. A study in East Germany found that levels of sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides were associated with an increased risk of developing upper respiratory infections in nine- to eleven-year-olds.[63]

Increased Respiratory Symptoms

Elevated levels of various air pollutants have been linked with an increased incidence of respiratory symptoms in children. In an ongoing study comparing air pollution in six U.S. cities and the respiratory health of individuals living in those cities, the frequencies of coughs, bronchitis, and lower respiratory illnesses in preadolescent children were significantly associated with increased levels of particulates and acidic fine particles.[64] Illness and symptom rates were higher by approximately a factor of two in the community with the highest air pollution concentrations compared to the community with the lowest concentrations. A follow-up study reported that rates of chronic cough, bronchitis, and chest illness during one school year were positively associated with particulate pollution.[65] Another study in these six cities also found a significant association between particulate pollution and the incidence of coughing and other lower respiratory symptoms.[66] One study suggested that though all children are at risk for increased respiratory symptoms due to particulate pollution, children with preexisting respiratory conditions (wheezing, asthma) are at greater risk.[67]

Decreased Lung Function

To maintain a normal rate of gas exchange -- the removal of carbon dioxide and replenishment of oxygen -- the lungs must be able to inhale and exhale an adequate volume of air. In determining how well a person's lungs function, researchers take measurements of the lungs at rest, the volume of air that can be inhaled and exhaled, and the time it takes to exhale.

Numerous studies have showed that even brief exposure to air pollutants can impair lung function.[68] One study in Utah Valley indicated that elevated particulate levels were associated with a decline in lung function among elementary school-age children as measured by peak expiratory flow (the maximum rate at which air is exhaled from a maximum inhalation).[69] Another study examined the health effects of exposure to acidic air pollution among children in twenty-four communities in the United States and Canada and found that acidic air pollution is associated with reductions in pulmonary function, as measured by forced vital capacity (the volume of air forcibly exhaled from a deep inhalation) and forced expiratory volume (the volume of air exhaled over a specific period of time from a maximum inhalation).[70]

Much of the evidence that air pollution reduces lung function in children focuses on summertime exposure to acidic particles or acid aerosols.[71] Reductions in pulmonary function in children have also been linked to ozone exposure.[72] One study found a significant decline in forced expiratory volume after ozone exposure, a change that appeared to persist for sixteen to twenty hours.[73]

Exacerbation of Asthma

Approximately 4.8 million children in the United States under the age of 18 have asthma, the most common chronic illness among children.[74] The incidence of the disease is on the rise, increasing nearly 40 percent among U.S. children between 1981 and 1988.[75] Other countries are also observing rising rates of asthma. Blacks, Hispanics, and people living in urban areas appear to be at greatest risk for the disease.[76] Asthma is a complex disease associated with many factors including genetics, allergies (cockroaches and dust mites), mildew, molds, and the environment. Asthma is a condition of the airways characterized by chronic inflammation and episodic limitation of the flow of air into and out of the lungs. Symptoms of the disease include coughing, tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, and wheezing. Exacerbations of asthma have been linked with exposure to ambient air pollutants, indoor air pollutants, as well as allergens.

Based on increased hospital admissions, increased hospital emergency room visits, and increased medication use, ambient air pollution is associated with aggravation of asthma. In a recent study of children at an asthma summer camp, ozone air pollution was significantly correlated with an increase in the use of asthma medication and the worsening of other asthma symptoms.[77] The children were 40 percent more likely to suffer asthma attacks on high pollution summer days. In another study, researchers reported a 37 percent increase in hospital emergency visits for childhood asthma after periods of maximum ozone pollution levels.[78] A study in Mexico City showed an association between increased levels of particulate matter and ozone and a worsening of respiratory symptoms among mildly asthmatic children.[79] Hospital admissions among children with asthma in Toronto were higher after days with elevated ozone levels.[80]

Children of Color

While dirty air is a threat to all Americans, communities of color often suffer disproportionately from air pollution. This is also true of low-income communities. Such communities have historically been used as dumping grounds for the toxic by-products of industrial society. Several studies have demonstrated that proportionately more landfills, power plants, toxic waste sites, bus depots and rail yards, sewage treatment plants, and industrial facilities are sited in them.[81] In a landmark report[82] prepared by the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice, investigators discovered that three of the five largest hazardous waste landfills in the United States are in Black or Latino neighborhoods and that the mean percentage of people of color in areas with toxic waste sites is twice that of areas without toxic waste sites. An update to this report found that, in 1993, the percentage of people of color remains three times higher in areas with the highest concentration of commercial hazardous waste facilities than areas without commercial hazardous waste facilities.[83]

The health risks from air pollution are likely to be more serious for children who are already exposed to toxic chemicals, because they live or attend school near landfills, toxic waste sites, bus depots and rail yards, industrial plants, or similar facilities. Because of low-quality housing, overcrowding, and lack of air conditioning, children in low-income communities may also spend more time outdoors on smoggy summer days. (In the absence of air conditioning, indoor concentrations of ozone can approach 80 percent of outdoor levels.[85]) In addition, children in low-income families are less likely to receive sufficient health care.

Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory have found that minority population subgroups experience greater exposure to substandard outdoor air quality. In particular, their research indicates that minorities live in greater concentrations both in areas with above-average numbers of air polluting facilities and in air quality non-attainment areas. [86] For instance, 52 percent of all whites live in counties with high ozone concentrations. For African-Americans the figure is 62 percent, and for Hispanics it is 71 percent. Population group distributions were found to be similar for carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, and particulate matter, with higher percentages of African-Americans and Hispanics than whites residing in counties with excessive levels of these pollutants. Moreover, 57 percent of all whites, 65 percent of African-Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanics live in counties that failed to meet at least one of the EPA's ambient air quality standards. Five percent of whites, 10 percent of African-Americans, and 15 percent of Hispanics live in counties that exceed standards for four air quality standards.

To compound the greater likelihood that children of color reside in the areas of worst air pollution, Black and Hispanic children are potentially more susceptible to air pollution due to their increased rates of asthma. Black and Hispanic children have a higher incidence of asthma than white children. Black children are more likely to have asthma than white children.[87] Moreover, Black children aged five to fourteen years are four times more likely than whites to die from asthma, and African-Americans under the age of twenty-four are 3.4 times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma.[88] Children of Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) mothers have a rate of asthma two and a half times higher than whites and more than one and a half times higher than Blacks.[89] Within the Hispanic-American population, the highest prevalence of asthma among children was in Puerto Ricans (11.2 percent), followed by Cuban-Americans (5.2 percent), and Mexican-Americans (2.7 percent). By comparison, the asthma incidence in non-Hispanic Blacks is 5.9 percent and in non-Hispanic whites it is 3.3 percent.[90]

What You Can Do
The following are suggestions for protecting children and other family members during air pollution episodes.

Regularly check air pollution levels in your area and plan accordingly. Pollution patterns and concentrations can differ radically from one area to another. Some areas might be particularly susceptible to carbon monoxide violations, while for others it might be ozone. Be sure you are able to recognize the air district jurisdiction under which your area falls. Call your county health department to identify your local air pollution control agency. Pollution patterns also change over the course of a single day. During hot summer months in some areas, for instance, levels of ozone are five times higher in the afternoon than in the morning, while in the winter the mid or late afternoon may be the time of lowest pollution. Depending upon the area in which you live, newspapers and newscasts often discuss each day's air pollutant levels. You can also contact your local air district for specific information and advice.

Limit children's outdoor exercise when smog levels are high. Laboratory studies have revealed that heavy exercise during smog episodes contributes to adverse health effects. Though our bodies have a variety of protective mechanisms against the adverse affects of air pollution, children are especially vulnerable and should be encouraged to stay indoors during smog episodes. At these times, keep doors and windows closed whenever possible while taking into account the sensitivities of asthmatics and others with breathing difficulty that may be exacerbated due to indoor air pollutants.

Be sure your child's school is prepared for smog episodes. Every school should have plans for smog episodes, including alerting teachers, curtailing sports or exercise programs, and providing alternative activities that do not involve heavy physical exertion.

Encourage curriculum development on air pollution issues. Children need help identifying air pollution hazards and the health symptoms that might indicate sensitivity to air pollution. Encourage your child's school to develop curriculum units centered on these issues.

Be aware of sensitivities that put family members at increased risk. Children, people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases, the elderly, and the chronically ill are especially vulnerable to air pollution. During episodes of poor air quality, monitor the health of these individuals and contact a physician if needed.

Avoid highly polluted areas during smog episodes. If you must be outside during a smog episode, avoid busy streets and highways that can significantly increase your exposure. Sitting in a car during a hot summer day in the middle of a traffic jam can expose you to elevated levels of carbon monoxide.

Keep indoor air as clean as possible. Do not smoke cigarettes indoors. Keep your house free from dust and mildew. To control dust in the home, remove wall-to-wall carpets when possible and replace them with small area rugs that can be thoroughly cleaned. Periodically remove and launder heavy curtains. Be sure that fumes from gas stoves and heaters are properly vented, and reduce indoor sources of pollutants such as insecticides, wood fires, cleaners, solvents, and deodorizing sprays. When painting or using chemical cleaning agents, assure full ventilation.

Help get polluters off the road. Report vehicles with visibly excessive tailpipe emissions to your local air quality management district. In some areas, an anonymous 800 number is available for this purpose. Minimize your own use of the automobile. Take your car to a reliable service station if your automobile "smokes " or if the "check engine " light remains illuminated. Carpool whenever possible. Use public transportation, bicycle, or walk as frequently as you can.

Consult the Toxics Release Inventory. The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), part of the 1986 Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act, is a powerful tool for uncovering local sources of air pollution. The information, available thorough the regional US EPA office or state air pollution board, is free to any citizen who requests it. The TRI data identify by name and location industrial facilities that release toxic substances into the air, water, or land. Contact the EPA's Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Information Hotline at 800/535-0202.

Model Programs and Local Solutions
In a number of communities across the country, community pressure, progressive business decisions, and government programs have worked to promote feasible, non-polluting alternatives that make economic sense. The job includes not only pressuring local businesses, but regulators as well. Below are some examples.

The Scott Paper Company was opening a new facility in Owensboro, Kentucky. When a local group learned of their plans, they pressed the company to live up to its environmental commitments. Under this pressure, Scott researchers came up with a new process that eliminated airborne emissions of formaldehyde and dramatically reduced emissions of epichlorohydrin, and the community got 500 new jobs and a healthy environment.[117]

Concerned about emissions from a new incinerator, the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Education Network coordinated efforts throughout the state and helped block the siting of a commercial hazardous waste incinerator. But they didn't stop there. Recognizing the state's need to address hazardous waste generation and disposal, the group presented state officials with a "Waste Reduction Assurance Plan " as an alternative to the EPA-required "Capacity Assurance Plan, " which helped guide the state to more environmentally safe solutions.[118]

A chemical facility in Manchester, Texas, run by Rhone-Poulenc was operating an incinerator that burned liquid waste. Changes in environmental regulations reclassified some of this waste as hazardous, requiring changes in the company's operating permit. One week before a meeting to discuss the permit modification, a release of sulfur dioxide from the plant sent twenty-seven people to the hospital. A group of concerned citizens from the largely Hispanic, low-income neighborhood along the Houston ship channel joined forces with Texans United, a statewide environmental group, and together they persuaded the company to open up some of its decision-making processes to a Community Advisory Committee.[119]

In 1983, the Ashland Oil refinery in northeastern Kentucky on the Big Sandy River installed new equipment to process low-quality crude oil into gasoline. It wasn't long before a fine powdery soot began to settle over the area, causing paint to peel from homes and automobiles and citizens to experience skin burns and eye irritation. While Ashland Oil officials stated that the powder was "safe enough to eat, " a chemist with the West Virginia Air Pollution Control Commission called the substance, "as corrosive as drain cleaner. " In 1987, more than 700 people filed personal damage claims against Ashland; while most claims were settled out of court, some went to trial. In one case, four residents were awarded $10.3 million, which stirred more hostility against the plaintiffs than against Ashland. Then, in 1992, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition published a report, with facts supplied by the company and the EPA, showing that the Ashland refinery releases significantly more of each pollutant than other refineries. As a result, a 24-hour video monitoring system has been installed by the state at the company's expense. In addition, an $8.85 million settlement fund has been set aside for resolving outstanding fines for numerous state and federal air quality violations.[120]

In 1993, NRDC launched a campaign to substitute natural gas-powered buses for diesel buses in New York and Los Angeles. Natural gas buses emit 60 percent less particulates and nitrogen oxides than the most advanced diesel engines. In 1997, New York Governor George Pataki announced that New York City would purchase at least 500 clean-fuel buses over the next five years and convert three inner-city diesel bus depots to natural gas. Similarly, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority has committed to buying only natural gas buses.

CURRENT REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
While the first federal standards regulating air pollutants were established in the 1950s, it was not until 1970 that the first major legislative breakthrough occurred when Congress passed the Clean Air Act (CAA). The CAA requires the EPA to set federal standards to limit exposures to major air pollutants including ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and lead. Accordingly, the EPA has established National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for each of these pollutants, which is a legally permissible upper limit on the concentration of that particular substance in the air. Individual states are allowed to establish air pollution standards that are stricter than the federal standards. States are required to develop state implementation plans indicating how they will comply with the Clean Air Act requirements. The EPA must approve the state implementation plan or the EPA can take over enforcement of the Clean Air Act in that state. The 1990 amendments to the CAA require the EPA to develop regulations to reduce emissions of 189 hazardous air pollutants. The CAA also requires improvements in motor vehicles to decrease tailpipe emissions, phases out chemicals that deplete atmospheric ozone, and reduces emissions of acid rain precursors. In spite of recent improvements in air quality, many areas of the country exceed the NAAQS for a variety of pollutants. Strong implementation of the CAA is critical to improving air quality.

REFORMS NEEDED
In essence, there are two primary ways in which the government can help improve the quality of the air our nation's children breathe: set more stringent health standards for key air pollutants and carry out more aggressive clean air strategies.

Improve Health Standards

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set air pollutant standards based on health criteria. Despite this, children face substantial health risks from breathing air with levels of pollutants significantly below those permitted by the current EPA standards. If the EPA or local air quality boards were to set more stringent air quality standards, then more areas of the country would reap substantial health benefits. Even though many areas of the nation are far from achieving even inadequate standards, it is crucial that some of the present standards be revised to protect against the grave health risks of air pollution reflected in the medical evidence.

The EPA's air quality standards are structured in a variety of ways to guard against health threats from both acute pollution episodes and chronic exposure. One-hour and 24-hour standards are primarily intended to guard against acute episodes that can be extremely hazardous to sensitive individuals and have been known to incapacitate some and even lead to death for others. Seasonal or annual measuring times, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly important in the wake of mounting evidence about additional, cumulative health impacts. Annual or quarterly standards exist for PM10, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and lead. In general, the criteria used by federal and state regulators do not provide sufficient protection against repeated and chronic exposures, or combinations of pollutants.

Implement revised ozone and particulate matter standards. On July 16, 1997, the EPA issued new air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter.[121] The previous standard, set in 1979, limited ozone to 120 parts per billion in a single hour. The new limit is 80 parts per billion measured over eight hours. For particulate matter, the EPA's new standard allows daily concentrations up to 65 micrograms per cubic meter of air and annual average concentrations of up to 15 micrograms per cubic meter for the smallest particles (less than 2.5 microns in diameter). The standards will protect the health of 125 million Americans, including 35 million children, from the hazards of air pollution. Industry and some members of Congress are seeking to block the enforcement of the new standards.

Protect against chronic exposure. The mounting evidence of risk from exposure over a lifetime calls for a different approach to health standards and clean air policy as a whole. Standards continue to be set to protect against the risks from single, short-term exposures to single pollutants. Current control measures encourage "peak shaving, " which, rather than reducing average levels and exposures, focuses only on specific episodes.

Study the pollutant "soup. " Evidence suggests that combined effects of pollutants may be greater than the sum of their individual effects. Regulators should support more research aimed at identifying the health risks from simultaneous exposure to different combinations of air pollutants and revise standards accordingly.

Provide adequate margins of safety. Air quality regulators are required by law to protect the public not only against demonstrable hazards, but also against those that are suspected or have not yet been quantified. Consequently, even when medical evidence merely suggests health impacts, measures must be taken. This is particularly critical in the case of children's health since most of the existing standards are based upon studies conducted on adults. The only way to ensure the protection of children is to establish conservative margins of safety.

Strengthen nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide standards. Federal standards for nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide must be tightened to provide protection against short-term pollution episodes in response to medical evidence of adverse health effects from short-term exposure to these substances. NRDC recommends that federal 24-hour sulfur dioxide standards be tightened. In addition, a short-term standard must be developed to protect children and others with asthma who can be affected by exposures as short as five minutes.

More Aggressive Clean Air Strategies

With several important exceptions, states are allowed to go beyond the minimum federal requirements by adopting more aggressive control programs and more stringent health standards. California, for instance, has set the strongest air pollution health standards in the country. For the nation to achieve clean air, the rest of the country must move, at a minimum, to emulate California's tighter health standards and more aggressive pollution control programs.

NRDC has identified a variety of ways in which national and state air quality programs can be improved:

Improve and enforce implementation plans. The most heavily polluted areas in the nation often lack integrated, comprehensive implementation plans to reduce air emissions. Few air quality regulators have the geographic reach or authority to develop and execute regionally coordinated plans of action, despite the regional nature of what they are regulating. And even if an area has well-crafted implementation plans, that does not assure adequate implementation, monitoring, or enforcement. This has been because, in the case of federal regulations, Congress has historically pushed back attainment dates at the request of cities or states, thus increasing public cynicism over the ultimate value of the laws.

Tighten emissions requirements for new vehicles. Transportation-related emissions account for about 50 percent of the ozone problem and almost all of the carbon monoxide problem. Some of our greatest emission reduction opportunities and greatest political problems arise in the transportation area. NRDC has helped lead a successful campaign to persuade the EPA to approve a "low emission vehicle " program for the Northeast. This program will require substantial improvements in emission standards for automobiles and require the introduction of a limited number of zero-emission vehicles. Additional changes are necessary to require manufacturers to produce more durable emission control systems for new vehicles and to strengthen emission standards for minivans and sport utility vehicles.

Reformulate fuels and clean up existing cars. The benefits of air emissions control programs will never be fully realized until the existing fleet of cars is retired, which typically takes from twelve to twenty years. Auto inspection and maintenance programs can control very large amounts of pollution at much less cost than pollution control measures on factories. There are several kinds of initiatives at work throughout the country that have reduced emissions for these vehicles:

Reformulating to cleaner gasoline and diesel, which can reduce emissions about 30 percent in every vehicle.

Upgrading vehicle inspection and maintenance programs to ensure that vehicle owners keep their engines and pollution control equipment in good order.

Establishing "clunker scrap programs " that promote early retirement of high emission cars, possibly a cost-effective way to reduce pollution levels.

Replacing dirty diesel vehicles, especially in municipal fleets of buses and trucks, with clean fuel vehicles that operate on natural gas, electric power, or other emerging technologies.

Improve transportation strategies and alternatives. For every ton of pollutants eliminated by the development and use of better technology today, more than a ton is added because of additional automobile travel. Accordingly, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments require seriously polluted regions to develop coherent transportation and trip reduction strategies over the next few years. No city in the nation has developed such a program, despite the existence of many cost-effective transportation control strategies.

Policymakers must learn to integrate transportation planning into their air quality programs in order to get drivers out of their cars and into alternative forms of transportation -- buses, shuttles, bicycles, walking.

If U.S. cities continue to grow through suburban sprawl, auto use will only continue to increase and efforts to change travel behavior will fail. Compact, transit-oriented development, mixed-use development, and the strategic designation of dedicated open space can all help reduce automobile use.

Provide economic incentives and disincentives. The costs of road construction and maintenance, police patrols, and accident response -- as well as environmental costs -- are all heavily subsidized by public agencies and financed through taxes. If motorists were assessed these costs in proportion to the number of miles they drive or their annual vehicle emissions, for instance, they would have a powerful incentive to drive less and use less polluting means of travel.

Reduce emissions from small stationary pollution sources. It is essential to control the pollution emitted by solvent use, "area sources, " and consumer and commercial products. Solvents, often held in large open vats for degreasing operations, contribute significant amounts of air pollution through evaporation, for instance. Some areas of the country must cut emissions from such sources by a staggering degree in order to meet federal clean air standards, and the most promising strategies include market incentives.

Better educate the public. The general public is forced to sift through myriad conflicting claims about air quality matters. For this reason, air quality officials and policymakers must expand and enhance current public education and involvement programs to build a stronger base of support for what are often politically difficult air pollution control measures.

Target communities with the greatest needs. As noted early in this chapter, researchers have found that communities of color and low-income communities tend to suffer disproportionately from air pollution. NRDC is concerned that current laws and regulations are inadequate to protect the communities most at risk, and we recommend that air quality researchers investigate communities at special risk from air pollution. In addition, officials should intensify pollution control efforts in these communities and target the most dangerous sources.

Air Pollution Linked to Birth Defects

2007-09-30T00:41:00.000-07:00

Smog is "exacting a much greater toll than previously known" on developing fetuses, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reports. The study, which was published in the December 28, 2001 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, for the first time links air pollution with birth defects in Southern California, the Times reports.

UCLA researchers examined "thousands of pregnant women" living in the Los Angeles area between 1987
and 1993 and compared pregnancy outcomes for women living in areas with "relatively dirty air" to women living in areas with "cleaner" air. Researchers determined that pregnant women who were exposed to high levels of ozone and carbon monoxide were three times more likely than other women to give birth to babies with cleft lips, cleft palates and defective heart valves. The greatest risk to fetuses occurred during the second month of pregnancy, when the fetus develops most of its major organs and much of its facial structure, the study found.

More Research, Reaction........

More than 12 other studies in the United States, Brazil, Europe, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan have established links between air pollutants and low birthweight, premature birth, stillbirth and infant death, the Times reports. For instance, a team of U.S. and Swedish researchers reported earlier this year that pregnant women in several U.S. cities who were exposed to elevated carbon monoxide levels during their third trimester were 31% more likely than other women to give birth to underweight babies.

Another study by UCLA researchers published last year found that pregnant women exposed to elevated levels of microscopic particles during the final six weeks of pregnancy were 20% more likely to deliver a baby prematurely than women whose pollutant exposure levels were lower. In addition, a 1998 study by Brazilian researchers found that pregnant women exposed to high levels of nitrogen and sulfur oxides were 18% more likely than other women to have their pregnancies end in stillbirth. Researchers in that study also found evidence of carbon monoxide in the umbilical cords of nonsmokers, suggesting that air pollutants can reach fetuses through the umbilical cord. Carbon monoxide can cut off oxygen to a fetus, resulting in death, the Times reports.

Dana Loomis, a University of North Carolina epidemiologist and co-author of a study on pollution and pregnancy, said, "There really is evidence that levels of air pollution encountered in large cities worldwide may be hazardous to the fetus. This is something that has not been recognized before. It was always assumed the fetus was isolated in the womb from things in the environment." Tracey Woodruff, a senior scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and an author of one of the studies, added, "The research is suggestive, but preliminary. It's something to be concerned about, but nothing to panic about. It's something we need to pay attention to."

EPA officials have said that before federal limits for ozone and microscopic particles can be strengthened to prevent harm to fetuses, additional research is necessary to determine what pollutants are harmful and at which stages of pregnancy they are most damaging to fetal development. In California, state officials are using the recent studies to back up a recommendation that the state Air Resources Board lower the statewide standard for airborne particle pollution by 33 percent (Polakovic, Los Angeles Times, 12/16).

Sabah to boost Serasi scheme

2007-09-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

By RUBEN SARIO

Newsdesk@thestar.com.my

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is keen for all schools to become environmental-friendly places by adopting the Sekolah Rakan Alam Sekitar (Serasi) programme.

Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the programme would create more environmental awareness among students.

“We hope to meet with the State Education Director and discuss in which ways and means we can expand the programme and make it compulsory in all schools,” he said at SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin in Penampang recently.

Resourceful: Benschop (left) and Masidi admiring paper lamps shaped from discarded newspapers – a project by students of SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin in Kota Kinabalu recently.
Earlier, Masidi received an RM80,000 cheque from Shell Malaysia Gas and Power vice president Dick Benschop for the Serasi programme to run until next year.

The programme, aimed at spreading environmental awareness and protection among primary and secondary schools in Sabah, is now in its fifth year.

Serasi, an environmental education programme and an incentive scheme, is jointly organised by the state Environmental Protection Department, the Department of Environment, Forestry Department, Education Department, Science and Technology Unit, Shell Malaysia Gas and Power, the Environmental Action Committee and the Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre.

Apart from the funding by Shell Malaysia Gas & Power, the remaining cost of RM70,000 will be funded by the Environment Protection Department, Department of Environment and the Science and Technology Unit.

Sabah Education Department will fund the transportation and lodging costs of headmasters, principals and district education officers to attend Serasi workshops and roadshows throughout the state

Display: Students showing recyled products to Masidi (right) and Benschop.
Likewise, Sabah Forestry Department is bearing the total cost of its staff visiting more than 200 schools in the Second Level Evaluation.

Other Serasi organisers such as the Environmental Action Committee and Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre are actively assisting the implementation of Serasi in kind and expertise.

Benschop said that Shell was proud to support Serasi as it involved the promotion of environmental education in schools.

“We are very happy to see how the programme has grown over the last four years and the impact is has made on students,” said Benschop.

Shell planned to use the programme to educate teachers and students on issues such as climate change, he said.

Bush: Climate change progress must be measurable

2007-09-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Mason and Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday called for a "strong and transparent" way for nations to measure progress on fighting climate change but said each country should set its own approach.

In a speech to a U.S.-sponsored conference of major emitting countries, Bush also called for the creation of a global fund to promote clean technology that would be led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

U.S. President George W. Bush speaks before he signs legislation expanding Pell Grants to help make college affordable for students, H.R. 2669, The College Cost Reduction and Access Act, while in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, September 27, 2007. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)
A long-term goal for reducing global warming was needed, Bush said, but added "each nation will design its own separate strategies for making progress toward achieving this."

Bush, who has been under pressure from the world's major economies to accept binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, continued to emphasize voluntary approaches to tackling climate change as he kicked off the closing day of the conference.

Bush called the meeting as a precursor to United Nations talks in Bali in December, which will aim to launch a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set limits on industrial nations' emissions.

Environmentalists said the conference had produced nothing new and was an attempt to circumvent U.N. efforts on climate change, a charge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the fact that Bush was speaking showed the White House would not return to its previous skepticism about the seriousness of the issue.

"This is a big step," he told reporters. "The more you have official discussions about climate change ... the more difficult it is to go backwards."

Tobacco smoke a major cause for air pollution

2007-09-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Special Correspondent

A study shows that air pollution from vehicle emission has reduced while the contribution from tobacco smoke has gone up to 8 p.c.

Bangalore: Smokers may be harming more than their own health. A recent study conducted in the city shows tobacco smoke may be contributing up to 7.9 per cent to atmospheric pollution. It was about 6 per cent a decade ago, the study says.

The study was conducted by H. Paramesh, a Director of Lakeside Medical Centre and Chairman, Technical Advisory Committee of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB). The study, which used data compiled over the past few years, showed that though the number of vehicles in the city has steadily increased, air pollution from vehicular emissions has actually come down.

Though still above safe levels, air pollution from vehicle exhausts has come down because of measures such as banning heavy vehicles from the central business district and introduction of one-ways. Stringent emission checks on vehicles may have also contributed to this factor along with reduced emission levels made mandatory for new models of cars. Many new models even better these levels.

According to the KSPCB, concentration of sulphur dioxide in the air has come down to one fourth of the level prevailing in 1999, which should be considered significant. The amount of "respirable suspended particles" and "total suspended particles" in the air have also come down by 15 per cent to 22 per cent while only the percentage of oxides of nitrogen has gone up from 31 units to 54 units.

Tobacco smoke has negated the efforts to make the air cleaner, according to the study. There were indications that the number of smokers had increased in the younger age group despite statutory warnings on cigarette packets and intensive anti-smoking campaigns. The effect can be serious in the case of unborn children of parents who may be smokers or pregnant women regularly exposed to tobacco smoke. Unlike vehicle emissions, which are outdoors, tobacco smoke may be regularly present indoors.

Air pollution has resulted in the increase of ailments related to respiratory infections such as bronchitis, lung diseases, acute respiratory distress syndrome and respiratory allergies, including attacks of severe asthma. Increased air pollution has also caused cases of "middle ear infections" leading to hearing impairment in various degrees. Statistics collated from city hospitals show that an increase in sudden infant deaths, occurring within a few hours of birth, may be related to air pollution.

The study shows that respiratory disease related to air pollution or tobacco smoke is relatively lower among the highest income groups who have become aware of the risks of smoking. It is higher among the lower income groups, partly because of the fact they use firewood or dried dung for cooking and their houses lack proper ventilation for the smoke to escape.

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RADON

2007-09-28T01:34:00.001-07:00

Should I test my home for radon?
Yes! Radon is a known human carcinogen and the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. Since radon is a colorless and odorless gas, the only way to know for sure how much you and your family are exposed to in your home is to test. Testing for radon is easy and inexpensive.

How do I test for radon in my home?

It's easy. You can either do it yourself or hire a home measurement service. If you do it yourself, test kits can be purchased at retail outlets or directly from laboratories providing radon measurement services. Follow the instructions that come with your test kit. The test kit should be placed in the lowest lived-in space in your home (the basement if it is frequently occupied, otherwise the first floor). You should place the kit at least 20 inches above the floor and away from exterior walls. Indoor radon levels can be elevated by unusually high winds and storms so avoid testing during these periods. Be sure to send your radon kit to the lab specified on the package right away for the most accurate results. You should receive your test results in a few weeks. For a list of certified home measurement service providers, contact your State Radon Program or see the Region 10 website for a list of labs (link to PDF)

What do my radon test results mean?

Radon is measured in picocuries per liter of air (pCi/L). The average indoor radon level in homes across the country is about 1.3 pCi/L. The average outdoor radon level is about 0.4 pCi/L. Exposure to radon increases the risk of lung cancer incidence; the higher the concentration, the higher the risk. EPA recommends taking action against radon at levels of 4 pCi/L and higher.

What do I do if my radon test results are 4 pCi/L or higher?

Test again to confirm these results. EPA recommends that, if your initial short-term test results are 4 pCi/L or higher, you consider performing a second test to verify the results. The higher your initial short-term test results are, the more reason you have to choose a short-term follow-up test over a longer-term follow-up test. If your second round of test results are still at or above 4 pCi/L, EPA recommends taking action against radon.

How do I take action against radon in my home?

No. Radon comes from the natural decay of uranium in the soil. Even though the amount of radon in the soil might be similar throughout a neighborhood, the amount of radon that actually gets into your house may differ from the amount that gets into your neighbor's house. Radon enters your home through cracks, joints and pipe penetrations in the foundation and walls, exposed soil (like in a crawl space), water and building materials. Radon levels in your home are also affected by ventilation, pressure differences and temperature differences with the outside air. Since all houses are built a little differently, they can have very different indoor radon concentrations, despite similar soil concentrations. Nearly 1 in 15 homes in the U.S. is estimated to have elevated radon levels. Again, the only way to know for sure what the radon levels are in your home is to test.

Should I worry about radon in my water supply?

In comparison to radon that enters your house from the soil, radon that enters your house from water is, in most situations, a small source of risk. A general rule-of-thumb is every 10,000 pCi/L of radon in the water supply will cause an incremental increase of 1 pCi/L of radon in the indoor air. Radon in water can enter your home only through groundwater supplies that come directly from wells. Water treatment and storage at public water supplies typically result in very low radon concentrations entering the distribution system. Therefore, Region 8 recommends testing of all private well water supplies concurrent with an indoor air radon test. If your water supply comes from a private well, you can contact a certified testing lab to have your water tested for radon.

What is the BIER VI report by the National Academy of Sciences?

The NAS has prepared its latest analysis of health research on radon, the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VI) Report. This is the most comprehensive review effort to

date. The Committee was charged with:

reviewing all current miner and residential data, as well as all existing cellular-biological data,

comparing the dose per unit exposure effects of radon in mines and homes,

examining interactions between radon exposure and smoking, and

Examining any exposure-rate effect (alteration of effect by intensity of exposure). The report confirms that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. and that it is a serious public health problem. The study fully supports EPA estimates that radon causes about 15,000 lung cancer deaths per year. You can read a summary of the report at http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/beirvi.html

Q&A that is frequently asked

2007-09-28T01:31:00.000-07:00

NESHAP/MACT Part 61/Part 63

What are the National Emissions Standards For Hazardous Air Pollutants?
The general provisions to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) in 40 CFR Parts 60 and the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) in 40 CFR Parts 61 and 63, under the Clean Air Act, provide that a source owner or operator may request a determination of whether certain intended actions constitute the commencement of construction, reconstruction, or modification. EPA's written responses to these inquiries are broadly termed applicability determinations.

The NSPS and NESHAP also allow sources to seek permission to use monitoring or recordkeeping which is different from the promulgated requirements. EPA's written responses to these inquiries are broadly termed alternative monitoring decisions.

Further, EPA responds to written inquiries about the broad range of NSPS and NESHAP regulatory requirements as they pertain to a specific source. These inquiries question whether a regulation applies to a specific source, or may relate to the testing, monitoring, recordkeeping or reporting requirements contained in the regulation as it applies to a specific source.
The EPA currently issues approximately 100 memoranda per year pertaining to NSPS and NESHAP applicability determinations and alternative monitoring decisions, and handles countless telephone and electronic mail requests from the regulated community and from State and Local Agencies implementing the NSPS and the NESHAP programs.

Who do I contact for more information about NESHAP in Region 10?

For Technical Information Contact Madonna Narvaez at (206) 553-2117. For delegation requests contact Lucita Valiere at (206) 553-8087

What is a MACT?

A maximum achievable control technology is the best available technology to abate a toxic pollutant from a given source. There are currently 35 MACT source categories regulated in the Pacific Northwest region. Sources of the same category report what works for them to economically achieve their NESHAP standards. A MACT is imposed when it is found to be the best economically achievable way to regulate a hazardous air pollutant.

Where can I find affected source lists for some of the newer MACTs that are coming out?

For all of the affected source lists that are available, they are posted on-line. Go to http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/eparules.htmlclick on the Tables of Completed or Tables of Proposed Regulations, and then click on the MACT in question to see if the affected source lists are available. For some of the newer MACTs, EPA is still working on collecting or cleaning up that information.

There is also a general document posted on-line, with instructions for locating affected sources. It's posted at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/gp/gppg.html#IMP. It was written in 1996, and is called, "Source Identification Procedures for Sources Subject to Regulations under Section 111(d) of the CAA as Amended in 1990.

Additional information on the upcoming MACTs is temporarily available at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/112j/info/112(j)-table2.html

How do I get a listing of the sources subject to MACT in my area?

Follow this step by step approach to find MACT sources in any region:

1) go to http://www.epa.gov/idea/mact/ and select Alaska as a region.

2) use the default options and click 'submit'. This will take you to a large spreadsheet with the relevant Macts and how many facilities are in your state. Keep in mind however, that these numbers are grossly inflated. Some of the facilities are closed and the database is a bit out of date.

3) If you click on the 'view' button to the left of the spreadsheet a list of the facilities with names and addresses will pop up. Notice that many of the facilities are duplicates. I'm not quite sure the reason for this, but basically it means you should count the different OPEN facilities and not just rely on the number listed in the internet spreadsheet.

For Questions Contact
Madonna Narvaez
(206)553-2117

Where can I find information about the facilities subject to a MACT in my region?

1) go to http://www.epa.gov/idea/mact/ and select the state or region of choice.

2) use the default options and click 'submit'. This will take you to a large spreadsheet with the relevant Macts and how many facilities are in your state or region. Keep in mind however, that these numbers are somewhat inflated. Some of the facilities listed are non-operational.

3) If you click on the 'view' button to the left of the spreadsheet a list of the facilities with names and addresses will pop up. Notice that many of the facilities are duplicates. I'm not quite sure the reason for this, but basically it means you should count the different OPEN facilities and not just rely on the number listed in the internet spreadsheet. To view a detailed report about the facility, click on 'facility report'.

NSPS Part 60/Part62

What are New Source Performance Standards?
The general provisions to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) in 40 CFR Parts 60 and the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) in 40 CFR Parts 61 and 63, under the Clean Air Act, provide that a source owner or operator may request a determination of whether certain intended actions constitute the commencement of construction, reconstruction, or modification. EPA's written responses to these inquiries are broadly termed applicability determinations.
The NSPS and NESHAP also allow sources to seek permission to use monitoring or recordkeeping which is different from the promulgated requirements. EPA's written responses to these inquiries are broadly termed alternative monitoring decisions.

Further, EPA responds to written inquiries about the broad range of NSPS and NESHAP regulatory requirements as they pertain to a specific source. These inquiries question whether a regulation applies to a specific source, or may relate to the testing, monitoring, recordkeeping or reporting requirements contained in the regulation as it applies to a specific source.

The EPA currently issues approximately 100 memoranda per year pertaining to NSPS and NESHAP applicability determinations and alternative monitoring decisions, and handles countless telephone and electronic mail requests from the regulated community and from State and Local Agencies implementing the NSPS and the NESHAP programs.

Who do I contact for more information about NSPS in Region 10?

For Technical Information Contact Madonna Narvaez at (206) 553-2117. For delegation requests contact Lucita Valiere at (206) 553-8087.

Residual Risk/Risk Assessment

What is residual Risk for Air Toxics?
Section 112(f) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) requires EPA to complete a Report to Congress that includes a discussion of methods the EPA would use to evaluate the risks remaining after the application of maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards. These are known as residual risks. EPA published the Residual Risk Report to Congress in March 1999. The CAA also directs the EPA to conduct risk assessments on each source category subject to MACT standards, and to determine if additional standards are needed to reduce residual risks.

again...

2007-09-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

posted by azizi abu bakar

again...

2007-09-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

When i prepare to visit recycle centre...i found this!

2007-09-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

KL syor negara maju bantu atasi krisis iklim

2007-09-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

MALAYSIA semalam mencadangkan satu tabung baru dengan dana yang lebih besar diwujudkan Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) bagi membantu negara membangun mengatasi masalah perubahan iklim dengan lebih berkesan.

Serentak itu, Malaysia juga mahu negara maju yang sedang dan sudah mendapat manfaat daripada pelaburan atau kegiatan mereka di negara membangun, lebih aktif membantu meningkatkan perlindungan di negara membangun daripada perubahan cuaca.

Menteri Luar, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, yang mewakili Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pada mesyuarat peringkat tinggi tidak formal mengenai perubahan iklim anjuran PBB, berkata negara maju mesti komited menawarkan pembiayaan dan teknologi kepada negara membangun bagi membentuk satu rejim iklim yang berkesan selepas Protokol Kyoto berakhir pada 2012.

"Negara maju perlu melakukan lebih usaha untuk menangani isu ini, terutama dari segi peruntukan pembiayaan kerana berdasarkan sejarah, negara maju banyak melepaskan gas rumah hijau dan mempunyai lebih kemampuan,” katanya selepas menghadiri mesyuarat itu, di sini, semalam.

Beliau berharap tabung penyesuaian yang kini diusahakan PBB mengikut Protokol Kyoto dapat beroperasi lebih awal dan pada masa sama mahu mahu dana alam sekitar sedunia yang ada ketika ini lebih mudah diperoleh negara anggota yang memerlukannya.

Katanya, banyak dana yang ditubuhkan untuk tujuan penjagaan alam sekitar menetapkan syarat yang sukar dipenuhi negara membangun, sekali gus menghalang usaha ke arah menangani perubahan iklim.

Protokol Kyoto diasaskan pada Konvensyen Rangka Kerja PBB Mengenai Perubahan Iklim dan menetapkan sasaran dan jadual pengurangan pelepasan gas rumah hijau wajib dipatuhi oleh negara perindustrian. Amerika Syarikat tidak memeterai protokol ini.

Tabung penyesuaian pula ditubuhkan bagi membiayai projek dan program penyesuaian konkrit di negara membangun yang menandatangani Protokol Kyoto.

Syed Hamid berkata, Malaysia sudah mengambil langkah terbaik untuk menangani masalah perubahan cuaca pada masa kini dan akan datang.

"Mengikut rancangan pembangunan lima tahun, Malaysia sudah memperuntukkan sejumlah besar wang untuk melakukan langkah pencegahan bagi mengurangkan kesan kerosakan alam sekitar pada peringkat sumbernya, meningkatkan usaha pemuliharaan dan menguruskan sumber alam semula jadi secara mapan," katanya.

Sementara itu, lebih 70 pemimpin negara maju dan membangun yang menyertai mesyuarat peringkat tinggi itu mahu usaha menangani masalah perubahan suhu dunia dilakukan melalui tindakan bersama iaitu Rangka Kerja Pelbagai Hala Tunggal dan sebarang keputusan hanya boleh dibuat Konvensyen Rangka Kerja PBB Mengenai Perubahan Iklim (UNFCCC).

Japan Seeking China's Cooperation to Cut Air Pollution

2007-09-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

By Liz Noh
Tokyo
25 September 2007

Japan is trying to enlist China's help to fight air pollution around East Asia. Some environmental experts in Japan believe their country's problem with declining air quality can be traced to its giant neighbor. But, as Liz Noh reports from Tokyo, assigning blame is a politically sensitive issue.

Officials with Japan's Environment Ministry say their counterparts in China have agreed to cooperate in the fight against air pollution.

Japanese officials say former Environment Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi and China's environmental protection head, Zhou Shengxian, reached a verbal agreement in late August. But, the details of such potential cooperation have not yet been worked out.

Earlier this year, Japan experienced high levels of ozone pollution, also known as "photochemical smog", which is caused when sunlight reacts with emissions from cars and factories.

Komichi Ikeda is the deputy director of the privately funded Environmental Research Institute. She says the current smog problems have not been seen in Japan since the 1970s, when the country was still industrializing.

Ikeda says China is now in a similar position.

"And it's another time to watch the photochemical pollution that must be coming from China, because there are very high concentration[s] in China now," she said. "They have industrialized very quickly and there are no specific or enough control[s] of pollution from automobiles and stationary sources.

Ikeda says 28 Japanese prefectures have had warnings for high levels of ozone pollution this year, particularly along the Sea of Japan, across from China.

China's cities have some of the world's worst air quality and the problem is spreading. Pollutants from China have been found in the air in South Korea, Japan and even as far away as the West Coast of the United States.

But finger pointing by Japan at China is a diplomatically unpopular approach.

Reiko Sodeno is deputy director at the global environmental issues division of Japan's Environment Ministry. She says Japan is trying to collect more specific data without accusing China directly.

"Experts pointed out the effects of China. But at the moment, they cannot show concrete contributions from China to Japan," she said. "We notice the effect, but we cannot tell the concrete value or rate of contribution."

That is why Japan is urging cooperative research with China to try to solve the problem.

Sodeno says Japan has suggested the two countries work together to monitor ozone levels, using equipment Japan would provide. Japan is also promoting an easier, less-expensive way to monitor ozone, using simulation models.

However, Japanese officials say since there is no written agreement yet, Japanese and Chinese environment ministries must continue talks to work out the details.

Sodeno says getting China to cooperate in research using simulation models could be difficult.

"The simulation model issue, it's more delicate and sensitive because using [a] simulation model, we can detect where is the source and how it contributes to air pollution in Japan," she said.

Sodeno also says transparency could be an issue and that it could be difficult to get accurate data from Chinese officials for scientific research.

Masako Ogawa is deputy director of the environmental cooperation department at Japan's Ministry of Environment. She is more optimistic about plans for cooperation.

"There may be some bureaucracy and [we] may have some problems, but I understand it's very important to engage them from the beginning to have some discussion or dialogue," she said.

Ogawa says the Chinese government is anxious to tackle the problem, particularly because China has committed to cleaning up its air before the Beijing Olympics next summer.

Beyond the Olympics, China has a five-year plan to reduce energy consumption and pollution.

Ogawa says Japan's efforts to help clean up China's air are part of a long commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are thought to contribute to global warming. The emissions are chiefly the result of burning carbon-based fuels, such as coal and oil.

Japan is working to get the international community to agree on a new framework to limit greenhouse gas emissions that would replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. Drafted a decade ago, the Kyoto Protocol sets mandatory emissions cuts for developed nations, but does not require mandatory cuts by developing countries, such as China.

Ogawa says that, although discussions with China may lack detail now, Japan sees them as an important step to engage China on environmental issues in a broader, global context.

Road sand eyed in air-pollution reduction

2007-09-25T23:59:00.001-07:00

By Greyson Howard, Sierra Sun
12:01 a.m. PT Sep 25, 2007

First, the Town of Truckee targeted old wood-burning stoves in an effort to improve the air quality of the mountain community.

Now, road sanding may be next air-quality threat in the town's cross hairs.

Truckee's seventh annual Particulate Matter Air Quality Report shows improving trends in particulate air pollution as a result of the town's woodstove change-out program. Newer stoves reduce the amount of fine particulates (under 2.5 microns) discharged into the atmosphere.

But while the town has reduced the amount of fine particles in the local airshed, Truckee exceeded national and state standards for coarse particulates of 10 microns or greater from 2004 to 2006.

The courser particles are generated primarily by road sanding, according to the town report.

In its proposed plan to reduce dust from road sanding, the town would ask the California Department of Transportation to modify its operations on Interstate 80 and local highways, according to the Truckee Air Quality Management Plan Control Strategy.

Typically, Town of Truckee road crews put down about 1,000 tons of sand on local roads a year, depending on conditions, said Dan Wilkins, town engineer and public works director.

"The sand is swept up between storms, and we typically spend one-and-a-half months to two months in the spring on comprehensive cleanup," Wilkins said.

Between 75 and 80 percent of the sand is recaptured, then hauled to either Teichert Aggregates for recycling or to Tahoe Sierra Disposal site for landfill sealing, he said.

Wilkins said recaptured sand can't be used on roads again because it becomes too fine to be effective.

The town has also attempted to reduce its use of sand in the winter by limiting it to school bus routes and applying sand only when needed, Wilkins said.

The equipment used also has filters to reduce the amount of course dust escaping into the air, he said.

"Our current practice is to only use as much as necessary, clean it up as soon as possible, and use the best equipment," Wilkins said.

The threat to air quality in mountain regions posed by road sanding can be glimpsed by the enormous amount of sand that Caltrans uses to keep local highways open during the snow season. In 2005-06, state transportation crews put down 24,450 tons of sand along Interstate 80 alone from Auburn to the state line of Nevada, including on and off ramps and overpasses, said Caltrans Spokesperson Shelly Chernicki.

While Caltrans keeps tabs on how much sand it recaptures in the Tahoe Basin, it only has figures for what it removed from drainage infrastructure on I-80, Chernicki said. In 2005-06, that amounted to 434 tons.

In the same period, Caltrans used 9,502 tons of sand in the Tahoe Basin on Highways 28, 50, 89 and 267, Chernicki said. Of that, the agency recovered 53 percent, or 5,053 tons, although late spring storms hindered the effort.

"In past years we've done between 80, 90 and 100 percent recovery," Chernicki said. "But with those storms, we lost two months of work."

She expects the recovery rate will be higher for the winter of 2006-07. Caltrans uses both "dustless" sweepers and six Vactor trucks, which vacuum up road sand, to reduce dust in the air, she said. The state agency also tries to offset any air quality impacts by using the highest grade (lowest dust) sand in the area, she added.

"It's a balancing act, we are trying to deal with water quality, trying to deal with air quality, and at the same time trying to keep the roads open and safe for motorists and commerce," Chernicki said.

Road sand eyed in air-pollution reduction

2007-09-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hearth and health

2007-09-23T20:10:00.001-07:00

With clean air a priority, officials take aim at fireplaces that go snap, crackle and pop
By Dawn Bonker, Special to The Times
September 23, 2007

IN the model home dubbed "The Pioneer," a rambling house tucked into a Corona subdivision springing up among the last dairy farms of Riverside County, is a fireplace unlike anything the early settlers ever gathered around on a chilly night.

Sleek glass doors front a metal insert that holds ceramic "logs." Built-in gas jets stand ready to send up flickering flames. And, in the most dramatic departure from tradition, a deep transom display shelf and window span the area where a chimney normally would be.

For regional air-quality officials, it's one example of what they may allow in newly built homes and in permanently installed patio versions as part of a stepped-up effort for cleaner air. But to new-home buyer Frances Macias of Chino Hills, the trend away from wood-burning fireplaces is a slightly sad fact of modern life.

"I like the smell of natural wood fires," said Macias, while browsing the John Laing Homes model one recent weekend. "Oh, I guess they have their reasons from a health standpoint. But it's too bad."

Health and air pollution were exactly what the South Coast Air Quality Management District had in mind early this summer when the agency proposed regulations that would have forced no-burn days on the region's smoggiest areas and put wood-burning-fireplace restrictions on remodels and new homes.

After the plan sparked a public outcry, officials last month backed off from any rules that would affect existing homes -- at least for now. A subcommittee is studying options including incentive programs that would cough up cash or utility rebates for homeowners who scrap old wood-burning stoves or modify traditional hearths to include permanent gas fixtures.

The fireplace rules are a small part of a comprehensive plan that tackles all of the region's sources of air pollution -- from restaurant charbroilers to automobiles -- in an aggressive effort to meet a Federal Clean Air Act deadline set for 2014. To help meet that goal, more restrictive rules will likely be imposed on new home construction, AQMD officials said.

But the district is not expecting the new-construction restrictions to be hugely controversial, said Laki Tisopulos, assistant deputy executive officer for planning rule development and area sources.

Indeed, say developers in the South Coast AQMD, whose jurisdiction includes all of Orange and most of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the proposals largely reflect what homeowners already prefer and what other California air districts have adopted. A fireplace is an amenity desired by 90% of consumers, according to the National Assn. of Home Builders. Whether that fireplace is gas or wood-burning is less of an issue, developers say.

What's in that smoke"The idea of wood-burning fireplaces tends to be a little more romantic in nature than reality," said Les Thomas, president of Shea Homes California.

Most homeowners don't have the inclination to buy and store wood and sweep up ashes, said Colleen Dyck, vice president of sales and marketing for John Laing Homes, which switched to gas-fireplace inserts in almost all of its homes about eight years ago.

Wood-burning fireplaces "are messy, and they make your carpets smell," Dyck added. And there's the spider thing.

"I grew up in Upland, and we kept our wood outside, and I was panicked about having to go out there and bring logs in," Dyck said. "You know, it's California and there are black widows out there."

But it's poisonous air that makes AQMD officials cringe. Wood smoke contains gases and tiny particulates that contribute to poor air quality and are small enough to lodge in lungs and cause a host of respiratory ailments, from asthma to lung cancer, air regulators say.

The fireplace rules were a relatively small part of the massive plan, but they roused considerable attention.

"Anywhere we go to present our plan, people zoom in and we hear, 'Stay away from my fireplace!' or 'Stop the insanity and stop burning wood!' " the AQMD's Tisopulos said. "There's nobody in the middle. It's one extreme or the other."

Kurt Lorig was among those who wanted the district to reconsider the wood-burning rules. Lorig owns Anaheim Patio & Fire and has sold hearth supplies for 51 years. Most people opt for the convenience and ever-increasing variety of gas-fireplace logs available for new and older homes, he said. But why deny a few, maybe 5% of his customers, who love the homey crackle of embers and aroma of wood smoke? The health concerns of wood smoke are overblown, he said, when compared to the pollution spewed out daily on the region's roads and highways.

"What about all the cars?" Lorig asked, pointing toward the busy Santa Ana Freeway near his Irvine store.

Most of the comprehensive plan does address vehicle and industrial sources of air pollution. But the region has just seven years to meet a federal deadline for healthier air, so officials say no source of pollution is too small to chase.

Tisopulos said he is confident the subcommittee can satisfy both camps and craft a compromise plan. It's likely, though, that the final proposals will recommend only EPA-approved fireplace fixtures in new developments, he said.

Rules in effect elsewhereMeanwhile, dedicated gas fireplaces, which typically feature gas flames burning around an arrangement of ceramic, pumice or lava logs housed in a permanent insert, are the norm in most new homes. Models meeting EPA standards are common throughout the San Joaquin Valley, San Luis Obispo County and the Bay Area, where air districts have already adopted burning restrictions. Wood-smoke reduction rules also are in effect in parts of New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana.

"In Southern California, we're one of the last ones to get with the program," said Don Bowker, Riverside division manager for Fireside Hearth & Home, a Minnesota-based supplier for home builders. Five years ago, 75% of its business was in wood-burning fireplaces, Bowker said. Now 60% of sales are gas-only products.

Still, Melvin Rosenbaum hasn't noticed a downturn in firewood sales at his lot, Rosenbaum Ranch in San Juan Capistrano. But he does know that new homes are shunning traditional hearths.

"You can't beat a wood fireplace, but it is a lot of work," Rosenbaum said.

With new-style fireplaces not requiring chimneys, architects can get creative. The fireplaces are vented outdoors by small openings similar to those attached to gas dryers, and everything from shelving to big-screen televisions gets popped into the spot above the fireplace.

At "The Pioneer" in the Steeplechase development, the area above the fireplace is dominated by windows. Another model includes a gas fireplace that almost functions as a room divider, with open shelving above. No chimneys dot the neighborhood roof lines.

Frances Macias may be nostalgic for the wood fires of her childhood in San Gabriel, where a fire was a real treat on the occasional chilly night. But she looks forward to using the gas one in her new house, just a few blocks from the model home she was prowling for decorating ideas.

So as wood-burning fireplaces go the way of front-door mail slots, will traditional brick chimneys and fireplaces typical in established neighborhoods take on a certain cachet or become a special selling point? Possibly for some buyers, but not for most, said John Hickey, president of the Pasadena-Foothills Assn. of Realtors and an agent with Dilbeck Realtors in La Cañada Flintridge.

"There really aren't that many consumers that would make that the final deciding point of their decision," Hickey said.

"For some people, the imagined benefits of the roaring fire and the Christmas yule log and the notion that they can't have that is something they couldn't get past. But most people will be able to."

DC's Air Pollution Days Have Declined by 44 Percent

2007-09-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

The new District Department of the Environment (DDOE) and the Metropolitan Washington Air Quality Committee (MWAQC) announced that the Metropolitan Washington Area has experienced an estimated 44% decline in the number of unhealthy air quality days from ground-level ozone pollution. This reduction is considerable as compared to several years ago. The decline was determined through data analysis estimates performed by the MWAQC.

Acting Director of DDOE Elizabeth Berry said, "DDOE has worked hard to influence the measurable decline in the number of air pollution days, but we are not out of the woods yet. We are working with the regional partners to achieve the federal Clean Air Act mandated standards for ground-level ozone by 2009. We still need to do more."

DDOE is a major contributor to the overall regional pollution reduction efforts and attributes the air quality improvements to their work with:

Drafting regulation and standards for the District's vehicular emissions testing program;
Requiring additional controls on industrial and institutional pollution sources (boilers, heating plants, and electric power generating plants);
Implementing regulation for controlling pollution from small sources such as consumer products (personal care products), portable gas cans, paints and painting operations, and auto refinishing products;
Adopting low emission vehicle standards for reducing pollution from automobiles; and
Enforcing anti-idling regulation to reduce diesel fume pollution.
A press conference will be held at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), on Wednesday, September 27, at 11 am in the main level training room to acknowledge the regional air quality improvements and speak to future plans for reducing the region's air pollution even more. COG is located at 777 North Capitol Street, NE, Washington, DC.

Trucks, trains targeted in agreement on cutting air pollution in Southern California

2007-09-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

10:00 PM PDT on Friday, September 21, 2007

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

State and Southern California air pollution officials announced Friday they will target pollution from trucks, locomotives and construction equipment in an attempt to meet a 2015 federal clean-air deadline.

The agreement, though short on specifics, ends a contentious year in which the officials often clashed over how to cut diesel soot and other fine-particle pollution, blamed for as many as 5,000 U.S. deaths each year.

Officials with the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board said their plan would slash emissions of oxides of nitrogen -- a key component of fine-particle pollution -- by 76 tons per day by upgrading old engines and setting tougher standards for new ones.

"This is a giant step forward that will lay the foundation that will allow us to get to clean air in Southern California," Barry Wallerstein, the South Coast district's executive director, said Friday in a telephone interview.

The strategy will require new regulations that will be developed and approved separately. Regulations affecting truckers are expected next year. Money to help make the changes happen could come from bonds, vehicle registration fees and other sources and would depend on support from lawmakers, officials said.

Under the most significant provision, trucks in California in 2014 would have to meet emissions standards of trucks that are new this year. That would require truck owners to modify their pre-2007 models with pollution-control devices -- or replace them.

Mary Nichols, Air Resources Board chairwoman, said the state would try to find ways to help truckers pay for such retrofits. A revenue source could be fees on cargo shipped through Southern California. Legislation may be required to impose such a fee, she said.

The strategy announced Friday is part of an air quality management plan that must be submitted to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency every three years.

As part of the agreement, the air board and South Coast district will lobby the federal government to reduce locomotive emissions by 2014 or provide California money to cut pollution some other way. Neither California agency has jurisdiction over railroads.

The strategy also would place newly developed smog-reduction equipment on Metrolink commuter trains.

In addition, off-road construction equipment used in the Southern California air basin and other high-pollution areas would face stricter emissions regulations than equipment used in other parts of the state.

The agreement also would target pollution from fireplaces and restaurant charbroilers.

Nichols said the strategy announced Friday focuses strongly on diesel trucks because most other polluting industries already are stringently regulated.

"It's time for them (the trucking industry) to step up to the plate and do their fair share," Nichols said.

Gregory Owen, the former president of the California Trucking Association and owner of Ability-Trimodal trucking company in Carson, was taken aback by Nichols' statement.

"We've been stepping up to the plate for 15 years," he said.

Since the early 1990s, California-based truckers have paid higher prices for cleaners fuels required by the state air board. Meanwhile, their competitors buy cheaper fuels out of state, said Owen, whose fleet has about 100 trucks.

Stricter rules will be most costly for smaller companies and independent truckers, he said.

The plan would also take advantage of measures California is developing to reduce global warming. For example, truck refrigeration units would be plugged into electrical outlets during loading and unloading, rather than relying on the idling truck engine to keep the unit cold.

The South Coast district has been demanding that the state air board seek tougher regulations for diesel trucks and other pollution sources that fall under state jurisdiction. Catherine Witherspoon, the air board's executive officer until recently, argued that tougher regulations would "break the bank" of the affected industries.

Witherspoon and air board Chairman Robert F. Sawyer left the agency during the summer.

Sawyer was replaced by Nichols, a UCLA law professor, who said the air board staff worked hard and creatively to reach agreement with the South Coast district.

"It was a high priority when I was appointed to break the logjam and have the two agencies working together," Nichols said in a telephone interview Friday.

Friday's announcement drew praise from environmental groups that have been pushing the Air Resources Board for cleaner trucks and trains.

"Mary Nichols deserves credit for reinvigorating a can-do attitude in the ARB," said Tim Carmichael, policy director of the Coalition for Clean Air, which represents health and environment groups.

Ozone deal hailed as blow against climate change

2007-09-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A deal by 191 nations to eliminate ozone-depleting substances 10 years ahead of schedule is a "pivotal moment" in the fight against global warming, Canadian Environment Minister John Baird said on Saturday.

Delegates at a U.N. conference in Montreal struck the deal late on Friday. The agreement will phase out production and use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) for developed countries to 2020 from 2030 and to 2030 from 2040 for developing nations.

The sun shines over outrigger paddlers practicing on the North Shore of the island of Oahu, in Haleiwa, Hawaii, June 15, 2006. A deal by 191 nations to eliminate ozone-depleting substances 10 years ahead of schedule is a "pivotal moment" in the fight against global warming, Canada's environment minister said on Saturday. (REUTERS/Lucy Pemoni)
Baird singled out China -- which produces the majority of HCFCs -- for praise. When the talks began on Monday, delegates said Beijing's role would be pivotal.

Washington says the faster phase-out of HCFCs will be twice as effective as the Kyoto protocol in fighting climate change. The United States walked away from the protocol in 2001 and Canada says it cannot meet its Kyoto targets.

"It (the deal) ... will stand out as a pivotal moment in the international fight against global warming," Baird told a televised news conference in Montreal.

Baird said the fact that India, the United States and China -- major countries not bound by firm Kyoto targets -- had signed the deal was a promising sign ahead of talks designed to produce a climate change accord after 2012.

The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) conference in Montreal marked the 20th anniversary of the Montreal protocol, which was designed to cut the use and output of chemicals found to harm the ozone layer.

Damage to the layer protecting the Earth from ultraviolet radiation has been linked to an increased risk of cancers and cataracts among humans. HCFCs are used in air conditioners and refrigerators.

'GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY'

"Governments had a golden opportunity to deal with the twin challenges of climate change and protecting the ozone layer and governments took it," Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director, said in a statement.

"The precise and final savings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions could amount to several billions of tonnes," he said.

Under the terms of the deal, all governments agreed to freeze HCFC production by 2013 compared to average production levels in 2009 and 2010.

Developed nations agreed to cut production and consumption by 75 percent by 2010 and by 90 percent by 2015 on the way to a full phase-out by 2020.

Developing nations committed to a 10-percent cut in production and consumption by 2015, a 35-percent cut by 2020, a 67.5-percent reduction by 2025 and a phase-out by 2030.

UNEP said that delegates had agreed to find enough money to provide financial and technical help to developing nations, but gave no details. The United States said before the talks that finding enough aid to satisfy China would be crucial.

Baird told Reuters that he had been "stunned and really pleased" by what he called China's huge contribution during the talks. He also praised Washington's role.

UNEP said it has spent $2 billion U.S. since 1987 on helping developing nations curb the use and production of ozone-damaging substances.

A study group will now look into how much the accelerated elimination is likely to cost and is set to issue a report early next year.

CDC Has Ample Supply of Flu Vaccine

2007-09-23T18:17:00.001-07:00

(WASHINGTON) — Come one, come all: After years of shortages and confusion, this fall promises plenty of flu vaccine to go around — up to 132 million doses, more than the nation has ever produced.

The ample supplies have the government urging vaccinations not just for people at highest risk of dying from influenza, but for anyone who wants to avoid a week of aching misery.

"Flu is a formidable foe," Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. "It is not an illness we should be complacent about."

But new CDC data show only a fraction of people who need flu shots the most get them, including just one in five babies and toddlers. And there's wide geographic variation, with Rhode Island reporting the most high-risk adults vaccinated and Nevada the fewest.

Shots aren't the only option. Wednesday, the government ruled that it's safe for younger kids than ever before to try a nasal-spray vaccine called FluMist. Once only an option for people ages 5 to 49, FluMist now can be used by children as young as 2.

Flu usually peaks in February, so a winter vaccination isn't too late. Still, Gerberding advised seeking vaccine early in case flu begins striking before the usual November.

Indeed, there already are reports of sick schoolchildren in Hawaii, although the geographic distance makes it impossible to predict if that signals an unusually early flu season for the rest of the country.

Perhaps of more concern, CDC is closely monitoring whether a new strain that emerged near the end of Australia's flu season will cause illness here — a strain that this year's vaccine doesn't specifically target.

Each year's vaccine contains protection against three influenza strains — two Type A strains, an H1N1 and an H3N2 version, plus a milder Type B — that experts predict will cause the most illness. The vaccine isn't always a perfect match, and this year's contains a different H3N2 version than the newly emerging one, nicknamed H3N2/Brisbane-like.

Get vaccinated anyway, Gerberding stressed. The other two strains in the vaccine are causing illness around the world, and even if the newer one travels here, too, the vaccine should provide some cross-protection.

Every year, flu infects up to 20 percent of the population, causes the hospitalization of 200,000 people and kills 36,000.

Who's at highest risk? Anyone over 50 or under 5; people of any age who have asthma, heart disease, weakened immune systems or other chronic illnesses; and pregnant women.

Vaccine also is particularly recommended for relatives and caregivers of those people, and health care workers _ people who may be robust enough to recover themselves, but could infect the more vulnerable before they realize they're ill.

"The day before you become sick, you're already excreting the virus," warned Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, vice president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

That equals 218 million people who should be vaccinated each year. Nowhere near that many seek vaccine. Last year, about 18 million of the nearly 121 million doses produced weren't used and had to be thrown away.

But the CDC's new estimates of how many high-risk patients get vaccinated, gleaned from public-health surveys, shed new light on the most troubling gaps.

People 65 and older are most likely to get vaccinated, 69 percent during the 2005-2006 flu season, the latest count available.

But that's still well under the national goal of vaccinating 90 percent of seniors _ even though Medicare provides them flu shots for free.

Just over a third of 50- to 64-year-olds are getting vaccinated, and just 30 percent of high-risk younger adults, CDC found.

Flu vaccine is a little more complicated for young children, because they need two doses a month apart the very first year they're inoculated. Just 21 percent of youngsters ages 6 months to 2 years were fully vaccinated, and just over one in 10 who needed two doses got both, CDC reported.

If a young child missed that necessary second dose last year, health officials are recommending that he or she make it up this year with two shots.

Perubahan iklim agenda utama

2007-09-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Daripada Azhar Abu Samah Di New York
PERUBAHAN iklim akan menjadi agenda utama ketua negara dan pemimpin dunia pada Perhimpunan Agung Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) ke-62 bermula minggu ini, sekali gus membuka jalan untuk perbincangan lebih serius semua 192 negara anggota badan dunia itu bagi mengatasi masalah sejagat ini.

Selain tidak mengetepikan isu keselamatan dan politik antarabangsa untuk dibincangkan, antaranya Kosovo, kemudahan nuklear Iran, isu Palestin, Myanmar, Lubnan dan menghantar pasukan pengaman ke Darfur, Sudan, perhimpunan PBB kali ini sudah mendapat gambaran awal bahawa pemimpin dunia sudah bersedia untuk mengatasi masalah ketidaktentuan iklim dunia, termasuk merangka langkah tambahan bagi menguatkan lagi komitmen semua negara anggota menjayakannya.

Menteri Luar, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, berkata kesan perubahan iklim dunia ketika ini begitu ketara, termasuk peningkatan suhu dunia dan cuaca tidak menentu yang membawa kepada banjir dan ribut kuat serta memberi kesan langsung kepada penduduk dunia.
"Sudah sampai masa pemimpin dunia berkongsi kepakaran dan sumber, termasuk menyediakan kewangan bagi mengatasi masalah ini kerana ia membawa bahaya kepada kita," katanya sambil menambah, Malaysia turut merasai kesan perubahan iklim dunia apabila Johor dilanda banjir terburuk tidak lama lalu.

Bercakap kepada wartawan di sini semalam, Syed Hamid berkata, beliau akan mengambil bahagian pada majlis pembukaan mesyuarat peringkat tinggi perubahan iklim di PBB hari ini dengan membawa usul betapa penting PBB mempunyai sumber kewangan yang kukuh untuk menguruskan soal perubahan iklim dunia.

"Isu ini akan mencuri tumpuan dalam tempoh dua hingga tiga hari PBB bersidang, termasuk ketika perbahasan umum," katanya sambil menambah Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yang akan berucap pada 28 September turut menyentuh isu sama, termasuk pendekatan Islam Hadhari.

Beliau berkata, walaupun Protokol Kyoto yang akan berakhir pada 2012 sudah mengambil tindakan mengurangkan kesan pengeluaran gas rumah hijau, namun pemimpin dunia perlu merangka satu mekanisme baru bagi memperlihatkan tindakan positif untuk memelihara kepentingan generasi akan datang.

Difahamkan, kesepakatan yang dicapai pemimpin dunia mengenai isu perubahan iklim dunia pada perhimpunan agung kali ini akan membuka ruang kepada masyarakat antarabangsa memulakan rundingan bagi perjanjian baru ketika berlangsungnya persidangan mengenai perubahan cuaca dunia di Bali, Indonesia pada Disember ini.

200 negara setuju hapus bahan kimia ancam ozon

2007-09-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

MONTREAL 23 Sept. – Hampir 200 negara telah menyatakan persetujuan untuk mempercepatkan penghapusan bahan kimia yang mengancam ozon dan memburukkan lagi pemanasan global, lapor Program Alam Sekitar Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (UNEP), semalam.

Pengarah UNEP, Achim Steiner menandatangani perjanjian tersebut dengan ketua-ketua kerajaan terbabit bagi pengharaman pengeluaran bahan kimia hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC).

Pengharaman itu merupakan satu isyarat mustahak dalam usaha memperlahankan perubahan iklim dan pemanasan global.

“Ia barangkali perkembangan yang paling penting dalam proses rundingan persekitaran antarabangsa sekurang-kurangnya untuk tempoh lima atau enam tahun ini.

“Kerajaan mempunyai peluang yang cerah untuk bekerjasama dalam menangani masalah berkembar iaitu perubahan iklim di samping melindungi lapisan ozon yang kian menipis,” katanya.

Perjanjian itu dicapai sewaktu para pemimpin dunia bersiap sedia menghadiri Perhimpunan Agung Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (UNGA) yang antara lain cuba membentuk perjanjian sejagat dalam menyelesaikan masalah gas rumah hijau.

Menerusi persetujuan itu, negara maju akan melalui fasa tanpa menghasilkan HCFC pada 2020 manakala negara membangun bermula pada 2030.

Tempoh itu adalah 10 tahun lebih awal daripada perjanjian terdahulu.

Perjanjian tersebut telah merombak jadual yang dibuat pada 1987 di bawah Protokol Montreal, bertujuan untuk menyingkirkan penggunaan HCFC dan bahan kimia berkaitan yang selalu dijumpai dalam peti sejuk dan penyembur rambut.

– AFP

CARBON SEQUESTRATION PROJECTS IN AFRICA: POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES TO SCALING UP

2007-09-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

Source: EarthTrends Environmental Essay Competition Winner
Author: Rohit Jindal
Editor: Tom Damassa and Stephanie Hanson
Date: June 2006

Introduction

Carbon sequestration is the process of removing excess carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere (3.67 tons CO2 = 1 ton sequestered carbon). The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) recognizes carbon sequestration through forestry as a way to mitigate global warming and also allows industrialized countries to offset their carbon emissions by investing in forestry projects in developing countries (UNFCCC, 2003). In addition, many private organizations are voluntarily promoting carbon sequestration projects to reduce their carbon emissions. Globally, carbon sequestration projects are now worth millions of dollars (see http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com), including financial inflows for many developing countries. Thus, carbon sequestration projects present mutual benefits for environmental conservation and economic development opportunities in poor countries (UNEP, 2004; Rosa et al., 2003).

Carbon sequestration projects' economic and environmental benefits are particularly relevant for Africa, the world's poorest continent. African countries need increased investment to support poverty alleviation and infrastructure development. With a high dependence on land and forests for subsistence, these countries also require effective strategies to combat the growing threat of widespread natural resource degradation. Accordingly, efforts to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration projects could bring in money both to raise local incomes and regenerate natural resources (Kituyi, 2002).

However, there are strong concerns that the growth in international carbon projects may bypass Africa, which contributed just three percent of the total global trade in carbon offsets in 2003-2004 and a negligible share in 2004-2005. This compares poorly with Asia and Latin America, which contributed 43 percent and 35 percent, respectively, during 2003-2004 (Lecoq and Capoor, 2005). Attracting more carbon investments to Africa is critical. The analysis of existing carbon sequestration projects in Africa may provide insight toward achieving this objective.

Carbon Sequestration Projects in Africa

This review covers 19 carbon sequestration projects in 16 countries in Africa (Table 1). Project details were collected from various sources: field research with local communities in Kenya and Mozambique, case studies, project documents, policy updates, and online databases of the World Resources Institute (http://climate.wri.org/sequestration.cfm), and the World Bank (http://www.carbonfinance.org). The latest information on carbon markets was obtained from Point Carbon (http://www.pointcarbon.com) and Katoomba Group's Ecosystem Marketplace (http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com).

Of the 19 carbon sequestration projects in Africa, seven are based in Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania. This indicates that East Africa is currently the preferred region for international carbon investors. Project locations, however, span diverse agro-ecological zones and land uses, including rangelands (Community-Based Rangeland Rehabilitation for Carbon Sequestration, Sudan), farms (The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program, Tanzania), dense forests (Forest Rehabilitation Project in Mount Elgon and Kibale National Parks, Uganda), and Lake Victoria basin (Western Kenya Integrated Ecosystem Management Project). The adaptation of carbon sequestration projects to different climatic conditions can be both beneficial as well as harmful for the local ecology (see below). Many projects also follow a multi-sector approach, aiming to generate benefits in addition to carbon sequestration; examples include improving the energy situation in Burkina Faso (Sustainable Energy Management Project) or conserving biodiversity in Madagascar (Andasibe-Mantadia Biodiversity Corridor).

World Bank's BioCarbon Fund is currently the biggest investor of carbon sequestration projects in Africa (Table 1). Other prominent carbon investors in Africa are the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Forest Absorbing Carbon Emissions (FACE) Foundation, and the European Union.

Information regarding the actual amount of carbon sequestered is available for 13 projects. Although these projects use different time lines, broad estimates indicate a total potential of approximately 35 million tons of CO2. Many projects will thus be able to generate carbon credits or offsets under the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol equal to the amount of carbon dioxide they sequester. The prevailing international prices for carbon credits range from $3.50 per ton CO2 at Chicago Climate Exchange to $15.80 per ton CO2 in various European markets. Carbon credits from carbon sequestration projects in Africa are therefore worth millions of dollars. At present, the Plan Vivo Project in Uganda and the Nhambita Community Carbon Project in Mozambique are already selling carbon credits to United Kingdom-based companies and sharing their carbon revenues with local farmers.

Potential Benefits

Carbon sequestration projects benefit global society by absorbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. They also provide several additional advantages for the host country.

Sustainable Development: The Kyoto Protocol stipulates that all CDM projects, including carbon sequestration activities, should achieve sustainable development benefits for the host country (UNEP, 2004). Many researchers have subsequently documented livelihood and other development benefits of various carbon sequestration projects around the world (Rosa et al., 2003; Smith and Scherr, 2002). Most current carbon sequestration projects in Africa, however, were not created for compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, although they often follow broad CDM guidelines.

Major developmental benefits for local communities from these projects include an increased number of timber and non-timber forest products from regenerated forests, employment opportunities from forestry activities, and increased incomes from the sale of carbon credits. For instance, in the Nhambita Community Carbon Project in Mozambique, each participating household will receive a cash payment of $242.60 per hectare over the next seven years (or $34.70 per annum) for carbon sequestered by various land-use activities. This represents a significant increase in most household incomes and, additionally, provides access to a regular income source (Jindal, 2004). Similarly, in the International Small Group and Tree Planting Program, Tanzania, local farmers receive regular payments on the basis of the number of trees they can manage on their lands (for details, see http://www.tist.org). These examples demonstrate that carbon sequestration projects have the potential to achieve sustainable development in Africa—providing increased financial inflows for host countries while promoting environmental conservation.

Biodiversity Conservation: Many natural resource management projects are not viable, either because their benefits are uncompensated environmental services or because national governments and other local agencies do not have adequate funds to undertake conservation activities. Carbon sequestration projects can address both these concerns by paying for some of the services (such as carbon sequestration) and by providing financial assistance to national governments to invest in natural resource projects (Gutman, 2003). This is particularly relevant for Africa where precious natural resources, including biodiversity, are being rapidly lost due to a lack of conservation investments.

There is evidence that many carbon sequestration projects are able to provide necessary financial assistance for biodiversity conservation in Africa. For example, the Forest Rehabilitation Project is helping to conserve Mount Elgon and Kibale National Parks in Uganda (for details, see http://www.stichtingface.nl/). These parks were widely deforested during the political strife of the 1970s and 1980s when various ethnic groups sought refuge in them. The Forest Rehabilitation Project seeks to reverse this degradation by planting indigenous tree species and educating local communities on the value of conservation. In addition to carbon sequestration, these activities are helping to conserve the local biodiversity and protect endangered wildlife such as chimpanzees.

Ecological Restoration: Carbon sequestration through afforestation and reforestation can often generate other locally-valued ecosystem services such as improved water quality and reduced soil erosion and sedimentation (Scherr et al., 2004). For example, the Western Kenya Integrated Ecosystem Management Project aims to improve the ecology of Lake Victoria Basin by taking responsibility for erosion control and watershed management activities over an area of 900 square kilometers. A key project component is to encourage adoption of agroforestry and other land management techniques that sequester carbon and pay local communities for carbon credits.

It is important to note, however, that carbon sequestration projects may not always benefit local ecosystems. A global study on the hydrological effects of forestry projects found that annual runoff reduced by as much as 75 percent when grasslands were converted into eucalyptus plantations for carbon sequestration purposes (Farley et al., 2005). Considering that many parts of Africa are rain deficient, there is a need to locate carbon sequestration projects carefully and to encourage native plant species, which require less water, over exotics.

Improving Soils and Land Productivity: Sub-Saharan Africa contains large tracts of degraded lands with extremely low agricultural productivity, especially in the Sahel. For instance, average crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa are 1.5 tons per hectare for maize, 0.8 tons per hectare for sorghum, and 0.7 tons per hectare for millet (as compared to about 2.5 tons of maize per hectare in many other parts of the world). This is due to poor soil quality, which occurs when soil organic carbon is lost to the atmosphere, leading to desertification. Estimates of the affected area range from 3.47 to 3.97 billion hectares (Lal et al., 1998). The process can be reversed through improved agricultural practices such as conservation tillage, soil erosion control, establishment of appropriate shrubs and woody perennials, soil fertility enhancement, and crop residue management. These not only restore soil quality by increasing its organic content but also aid in mitigating climate change by returning more carbon to the soil. Thus, carbon sequestration activities that improve soil carbon content have the potential to improve productivity of large tracts of land in Africa. The USAID funded Sequestration of Carbon in Soil Organic Matter (SOCSOM) Project in Senegal is carrying out further research on this issue (see Table 1).

Constraints To Scaling Up

As stated earlier, Africa's share of international carbon business is much lower than many other developing regions. This section looks at constraints to scaling up carbon projects in Africa.

Tenure Insecurity: Tenure security is crucial for carbon sequestration projects. Without clear land rights, suppliers cannot make credible commitments to supply carbon offsets (Gutman, 2003). However, most African tenure systems are characterized by multiple tenures where several users may have access to different resources on the same piece of land (Lund, 2000). This can cause confusion as to who owns the sequestration rights from this land. In general, a duality often exists between customary and statutory land rights in many African countries (Woodhouse, 2003), making carbon investments risky. If carbon sequestration projects are taken up where property rights are unclear, more powerful people may take control of land occupied by poor people. The poor may not receive benefits from carbon sales and could even end up losing access to their land (Kerr et al., 2006).

Solving this problem is not easy; many land titling projects in Africa have failed where they were inconsistent with customary practices (e.g., Ensminger, 1996). One possible solution is working on common lands and sharing project benefits with the entire community. For example, the Nhambita Community Carbon Project in Mozambique deposits $40.50 per hectare in a community fund on the basis of the number of hectares that are brought under carbon sequestration. Since all land is registered in the name of the village chief and no household has individual titles, the entire community gains from these group payments (Jindal, 2004).

Transaction Costs: The transaction costs associated with negotiating, implementing, and monitoring small-scale carbon sequestration projects are usually high; transaction costs per ton of CO2 for large projects are typically much smaller. In addition, transaction costs increase when multiple parties are involved (Kerr et al., 2006). As a result, investors usually avoid small-scale projects and dealing with many small landowners. However, in Africa, most rural people are small landholders. Although many African countries have large tracts of privately held lands that present an opportunity for large carbon sequestration projects (White and Martin, 2002), sustainable development in poor African communities require carbon sequestration projects to be taken up with small landholders, despite their financial unattractiveness to investors.

The CDM guidelines are currently under revision to reduce transaction costs for small projects. The recommendations are to simplify the requirements for small-scale carbon sequestration projects that target low-income communities and generate emissions reductions of less than 8000 tons CO2 per annum (UNEP, 2004). Once finalized, the new guidelines may help reduce transaction costs associated with small-scale projects, enticing more investors to finance carbon sequestration projects in Africa. However, it is equally important for African countries to complement this effort by promoting local organizations as carbon intermediaries that can work directly with local communities. Costs can also be lowered by developing projects in communities where participatory development processes are already in place (Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002). For instance, the International Small Group and Tree Planting Program has reduced transaction costs by building upon previous community forestry initiatives in Tanzania.

Governance: Similar to other kinds of foreign investment, a stable and well-defined regulatory environment is necessary to promote international carbon investments. Considering that most carbon sequestration projects have a long gestation period, investments can be risky unless backed by long-term economic and political stability. Therefore, in order to attract and sustain international carbon projects, it is essential to have good governance practices at national and local levels.

However, many African countries face political volatility and unpredictable governance systems making carbon sequestration investments a risky proposition. Several countries face long-term civil strife, making international carbon sequestration investments difficult. Despite this, substantial improvement in economic governance has taken place across sub-Saharan Africa since the mid-1990s. Skilled political leadership, international support, and desire for peace have led to progress in addressing conflicts in countries such as Uganda, Mozambique and Rwanda (World Bank, 2005). These initiatives increase the confidence of investors, who may, as a result, plan more carbon sequestration projects in these countries.

Institutional Capacity: The Kyoto Protocol requires each developing country to establish a Designated National Authority (DNA) to promote carbon projects that are aligned with national development priorities, beneficial for local communities, and support general sustainable development goals (UNEP, 2004). One important factor in establishing a DNA is its ability to ensure a coherent, justifiable, and transparent assessment of carbon projects and to generate enough revenue through these assessments to finance itself. However, many governments in Africa are unable to do so due to an absence of the necessary political and legal frameworks. Some countries even lack a general awareness about carbon payment processes (Kituyi, 2002).

Although organizations like the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme are already involved in training relevant government staff to identify, design, and implement new carbon projects, as well as other capacity building initiatives, much remains to be done. One possible solution is to include training and awareness building as an integral component of each carbon project. Therefore, apart from donor-led efforts, host countries should also be willing to invest in the training of their own staff. A downside of this strategy is a possible escalation in project overheads, which may be unacceptable to international investors.

Morocco's success story shows how such investments can yield higher carbon financial inflows. Since ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, Morocco has been actively involved in building institutional capacity. Its carbon portfolio now consists of 34 projects, including four sequestration projects. Although most projects are still in the planning phase, their estimated potential for carbon emissions reduction is about four million tons a year. Morocco is currently the first African country to be ranked in the top 10 international CDM host countries (UNEP and IETA, 2005).

Conclusions

The global demand for carbon credits will increase steadily as the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol (2008-12) draws near. Countries are exploring cost-effective measures to reduce carbon emissions and carbon sequestration is a viable option. The total market for carbon sequestration could be worth $300 million annually (Scherr et al., 2004). This represents a significant opportunity for economic development in Africa.

Although many African carbon sequestration projects are beneficial, expanding them beyond a few pilot schemes will be difficult unless challenges such as tenure insecurity, high transaction costs, political instability and a lack of institutional capacity, are addressed. Finally, it is worth noting that international carbon projects essentially represent an emerging market and not a grant-in-aid scheme. Only those countries that are well prepared and capable of participating in this competitive market will be able to fully take advantage of this new opportunity.

About the author (June, 2006): Mr. Jindal holds a M.Sc. in Resource Management (University of Edinburgh, UK) and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Environmental and Resource Economics at Michigan State University. He has conducted research projects for the World Agroforestry Center, Kenya, the University of Edinburgh, Natural Resource Institute, UK, and for NGOs in India. His research interests include the interface between economic development and environmental conservation and the emerging markets for environmental services and their impact on rural poor.

ACCOUNTING FOR BUSINESS GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

2007-09-22T01:31:00.000-07:00

Source: Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A corporate accounting and reporting standard (revised edition)
Author: Janet Raganathan and Pankaj Bhatia
Date: 2003

During the last decade concern has grown over the continued rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and the associated risks of climate change. Climate models predict that floods, droughts, and severe storms are likely to become more frequent and severe, costing agriculture harvests, economic progress, and lives . The most prominent international effort to date to reduce GHG emissions is the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1997, which specified national GHG targets for countries that contribute the largest amount of GHGs (Annex I countries). As of November 2003, 103 countries, representing 43. 9% of 1990 CO2 emissions, have signed. If ratified, the participating industrialized countries will be required to meet GHG emissions reduction targets between 2008 and 2012.

Business, as a major contributor to global GHG emissions, will need to play a significant role in helping countries achieve their reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Even if countries like Australia, Russia, and the U.S. do not ratify the Protocol, businesses are being encouraged to take action to reduce GHG emissions - albeit on a voluntary basis. For many businesses, compiling a comprehensive inventory of their GHG emissions is the first key step in developing an effective GHG management and reduction strategy. If developed properly, a GHG inventory will improve the company’s understanding of its GHG emissions profile and thereby its potential GHG liability or “exposure” in a carbon constrained economy.

Why Climate Change Matters to Business

A company’s GHG exposure is increasingly becoming a management issue in light of heightened scrutiny by reinsurers, climate related shareholder resolutions, and the emergence of environmental regulations/policies designed to reduce GHG emissions. In the context of future GHG regulations, significant GHG emissions in a company's value chain may result in increased costs (upstream) or reduced sales (downstream), even if the reporting organization itself is not directly subject to regulations. Thus, investors may view significant indirect emissions up or downstream of a company's operations as potential liabilities that need to be managed and reduced.

In an effort to curb GHG emissions from business, market-based approaches are emerging in some parts of the world. These typically take the form of emissions trading programs that set GHG targets or caps on participating companies. Companies facing high costs in reducing their own GHG emissions can purchase allowances or credits from another party, to meet its own target. Trading programs are being implemented on both a mandatory and voluntary basis. The forthcoming European Union community wide GHG Emissions Allowance Trading Scheme will require each Member State to impose binding caps on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from certain industrial installations. Participation in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and the Chicago Climate Exchange is voluntary, but once companies have elected to join the targets are binding and penalties exist for non-compliance. While trading programs typically focus on business operations in a specified geographical region, some companies are setting voluntary GHG reduction targets (see Figure 1) for their global operations. These targets may be set independently by the company or as part of a formal program such as the WWF Climate Savers, Business Leaders Initiative on Climate Change, and EPA Climate Leaders program.

In order to participate in these mandatory and voluntary programs, businesses need to first establish a robust and credible GHG inventory system for accounting and reporting their GHG emissions. Just like financial reporting, both business and external stakeholders benefit if these GHG accounting systems are based on common standards. For business, it reduces costs if their accounting system is capable of meeting different internal and external information requirements. For external stakeholders, it improves the consistency, transparency and understandability of reported information, making it easier to track and compare progress over time. For companies with global operations, the standardization of GHG accounting rules across countries is important in order to reduce the cost of responding to an array of different domestic policies.

Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative: Accounting and Reporting Standards for Business

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative (GHG Protocol) is a multi-stakeholder partnership of businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and others convened by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a US-based environmental NGO, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a Geneva-based coalition of 165 international companies. Launched in 1998, GHG Protocol’s mission is to develop internationally accepted greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting and reporting standards for business and to promote their adoption by businesses and policy-makers alike.

A first edition of the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard was published in October 2001, with a second edition scheduled for release in January 2004. The standard was designed to serve multiple business goals (see Box 1) and addressees a range of accounting issues, such as:

* Defining GHG accounting and reporting boundaries relative to upstream and downstream activities in the value chain (see Box 2);

* Accounting and consolidating emissions from partially owned entities such as joint ventures;

* Calculating emissions from specific sources;

* Tracking performance over time in a dynamic business environment (e.g., mergers, acquisitions and divestitures etc.);

* Setting GHG reduction targets; and

* Publicly reporting GHG emissions.

The GHG Protocol corporate standard has been widely adopted around the globe, with more than 100 companies using it to compile a GHG emissions inventory (see Box 3). The standard has been used as the basis for the accounting and reporting systems of numerous climate programs, including: US EPA's Climate Leaders program, WWF's Climate Savers program, California Climate Action Registry, World Economic Forum Global GHG Registry, the UK's emissions trading scheme, Chicago Climate Exchange, and the French REGES Protocol. GHG Protocol has also begun work on a new standard addressing the quantification of GHG mitigation projects that will be used as offsets or credits in trading programs.

Looking Ahead

Irrespective of whether Russia ratifies the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union trading program will proceed and major emitters of CO2 will need to reduce their emissions. In parallel, voluntary industry, NGO and government efforts to reduce the GHG emissions of business in countries such as USA and Australia will continue. These will likely be supplemented by mandatory regulations in specific states, such as the proposed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in several Northeast states of the U.S., which intends to cap CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants. Thus it makes sense for business, no matter where it operates, to take the first important step of establishing a GHG emissions inventory. This will enable them to more effectively anticipate and manage both the risk as well as the opportunities that climate change creates in the market place.

Global Desertification Meeting Yields Mixed Results

2007-09-22T01:16:00.000-07:00

By Amy Cassara on Monday, September 17, 2007.
Soucer : Earth Trends Environmental Information

On Saturday, the governing body for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) concluded its 8th Conference of Parties (COP) meeting in Madrid. While organizers were happy to report the passage of a new 10-year plan of action and the appointment of a new Secretary-General, the conference's failure to approve a final budget inspired criticism from some environmental groups.

The UNCCD entered into force in 1996 and is dedicated to addressing the problems of land degradation in the world's drylands. Along with two other international agreements--the Convention on Biodiversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change--the UNCCD was created in response to a call from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro "Earth Summit."

Unlike its sister agreements, however, the UNCCD has faced funding insecurities since its inception. The convention was not able to secure a consistent funding mechanism until 2002, when an agreement was reached to use Global Environment Facility monies, and its core budget was cut significantly in 2006-2007. Last week, the proposed budget failed to pass because the Japanese delegation was unable to approve a 5% increase in Euro terms (IISD 2007). This may have been due to the surprise resignation of Japan’s prime minister. The budget discussions will resume at an extraordinary meeting during the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

Some participants to the convention are hopeful that the proposed budget will pass easily at this session based on the strength of the UNCCD’s new 10-year plan and the promising appointment of a new Secretary-General. Others worry that the Convention, which primarily represents developing country concerns, will continue to experience the resource cuts that have become increasingly common in development aid and multilateral processes (IISD 2007).

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment defines desertification as "a persistent reduction in the services provided by dryland ecosystems." Drylands cover more than 40 percent of the earth's surface and are home to at least 2 billion people; more than 10-20 percent of these lands are considered degraded. Considered a "crisis of global proportions" by the United Nations, desertification could displace more than 50 million people in the next decade. The 10-year strategic plan adopted by the UNCCD last week will work to reverse desertification through awareness-raising, improved policy frameworks, science and technology, and capacity-building exercises.

RELATED LINKS:

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

Success Stories in Combatting Desertification

EarthTrends

UNCCD Convention Status by Country

Report: AN ECOSYSTEM APPROACH TO DRYLANDS

Carbon Storage in Vegetation and Soils in Drylands

UN Highlights Links Between Desertification and Climate Change

Air Freshener Report Makes Retailer Take Positive Action

2007-09-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

Walgreens Pulls Potentially Risky Air Fresheners from Shelves

NEW YORK (September 20, 2007) – A study revealing that some air fresheners contain chemicals that may affect hormones and reproductive development has spurred Walgreens to alter the content of their air freshening products. The study, released yesterday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), found that various common household air fresheners – including Walgreens products - contain phthalates, which may be pose a particular health risk to babies and young children. Walgreens announced that it will take proactive steps to protect their customers, including pull these potentially harmful products from their shelves, conducting independent safety testing on them, and making phthalate-free versions available in their stores soon.

Statement from Dr. Gina Solomon, NRDC scientist, regarding Walgreens Decision:

“Pulling these air fresheners from their shelves is a conscious choice on the part of Walgreens to put their customers first and take the lead on product safety. This is a wonderful example of corporate responsibility and also shows how companies and health groups can work together to find solutions.”

“Hopefully other companies will follow Walgreens’ lead. And we also hope that the federal government will step up and protect citizens further by taking closer look at the risks of phthalates and requiring companies to test for these chemicals and properly label their products.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

To Fight Pollution, China Orders Cars Off Road For A Day

2007-09-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

Vivian Wai-yin Kwok, 09.18.07, 11:28 PM ET

HONG KONG - The government is trying to turn back the clock on China’s auto boom this week. It is asking people in 108 cities to walk, bike and ride on public transport instead of driving cars. Then on Saturday, the government won’t be asking – it will be an order.

On "No Car Day," one or more special zones in the 108 cities – including Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin – will be open only to pedestrians, bicycles, taxis and buses from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The environmental campaign, initiated by the Ministry of Construction, aims at saving 33 million liters of gas, cutting 3,000 tons of emissions a day and, above all, raising environmental awareness, state-run China Daily reported Monday.

The weeklong campaign will be repeated every year around the same time, Qiu Baoxing, vice minister of the construction authority, told China Daily.

Once a rarity, there are currently about 50 million vehicles galloping across . They accounts for a third of the country's fuel consumption and the proportion is estimated to hit 57% by 2020, making auto emissions the main source of air pollution in China, followed by coal.

In the first eight months of this year, 5.69 million motor vehicles were sold nationwide, 25% more than the same period last year. In August alone, passenger vehicle sales were up 27% from the same period last year to 481,300 units.

Big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are the biggest polluters. There are 100,000 new vehicles hitting the streets a year in the capital, and about 30% of commuters there now drive every day.

The four-day citywide partial vehicle ban trialed by Beijing’s government last month reduced air pollution levels by 20%.

The central government is drafting a timetable to impose taxes on gasoline, diesel and kerosene, China Business News reported earlier this month, citing an unnamed official at the Ministry of Finance.

New Study: Common Air Fresheners Contain Chemicals That May Affect Human Reproductive Development

2007-09-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

Environmental Group Calls for Additional Testing, Consumer Awareness to Prevent Risky Exposure

NEW YORK (September 19, 2007) – An analysis of more than a dozen common household air fresheners found that most contain chemicals that may affect hormones and reproductive development, particularly in babies, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said today. The federal government does not currently test air fresheners for safety or require manufacturers to meet any specific safety standards. The study offers both consumers and officials new information on the risks certain air fresheners pose.

“More than anything, our research highlights cracks in our safety system,” said Dr. Gina Solomon, NRDC senior scientist.

“Consumers have a right to know what is put into air fresheners and other everyday products they bring into their homes,” Solomon added. “There are too many products on the shelves that we assume are safe, but have never even been tested. The government should be keeping a watchful eye on these household items and the manufacturers who produce them.”

NRDC tested 14 different brands of common household air fresheners and found that 12 contained the hormone-disrupting chemicals known as phthalates. Only two, Febreze Air Effects and Renuzit Subtle Effects, contained no detectable levels of phthalates. The products that tested positive included ones marketed as “all-natural” and “unscented.” None had phthalates in the list of ingredients or anywhere else on the label. The three with the highest level of phthalates were Walgreens Air Freshener, Walgreens Scented Bouquet, and Ozium Glycolized Air Sanitizer.

While consumers should be concerned about the chemicals, NRDC stressed that there is no cause for panic. The chemicals pose their greatest risk over long term repeated exposure.

In conjunction with the study, NRDC, along with the Sierra Club, Alliance for Healthy Homes and the National Center for Healthy Housing, are filing a petition to the EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) today. The petition calls for the EPA and CPSC to start assessing the risk air fresheners pose to consumers by comprehensively testing all air freshener products on the market.
NRDC said it also looking forward to working with the air freshener industry to find ways to eliminate phthalates from their products.

Air fresheners are now a $1.72 billion industry in the United States – a 50 percent increase from 2003 – with an estimated 75 percent of households using air fresheners. Despite the industry’s size, it is minimallyregulated, not having to meet any standards specific to their products. Air fresheners are not tested for a variety of chemicals, including phthalates, because the government does not require it.

“Manufacturers are getting away with marketing products as ‘natural’ when they’re not, and that’s because no one is stopping them,” said Mae Wu, an attorney in NRDC’s health program. “Our research suggests this could be a widespread problem in a booming industry that – so far – has been allowed to do what it wants.”

The tests, believed to be the first in the United States, cover only a fraction of the air freshener market. Tests included aerosol sprays, liquids that emit a continuous scent and a solid. The phthalates in the air fresheners may be inhaled or absorbed through the skin.

“There are plenty of good alternatives,” Dr. Solomon said. “The best way to avoid the problem is to simply open a window instead of reaching for one of these cans.”

Phthalates are hormone-disrupting chemicals that can be particularly dangerous for young children and unborn babies. Exposure to phthalates can affect testosterone levels and lead to reproductive abnormalities, including abnormal genitalia and reduced sperm production. The State of California notes that five types of phthalates—including one that we found in air freshener products—are “known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm.” Young children and pregnant women should be especially careful to avoid contact with these chemicals.

NRDC recommends that consumers who purchase air fresheners be selective and purchase those that have the least amount of phthalates.

NRDC also suggests consumers first try to reduce home odors by improving home ventilation. Since fresheners only mask odors rather than address them, tending to the root cause of the odor is a first step to tackling the problem.

Polluting Ports Break Clean Air Promises, Fail to Curb Deadly Pollution

2007-09-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES (September 20, 2007) - The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach get a failing grade for slipping behind in the implementation of their landmark Clean Air Action Plan, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In November 2006, the ports adopted a joint plan to reduce air pollution from their operations over the course of five years. However, since then they have missed several critical milestones.

“Adopting the plan was admirable, but that was the easy part,” said David Pettit, director of NRDC’s Southern California Air Program. “The implementation is where you show commitment and, unfortunately, the ports are slipping further and further behind.”

Under pressure from environmental and community groups to stop the public health crisis caused by freight pollution, the ports created the Clean Air Action Plan, which set forth a number of deadlines:

The ports committed to adopt, by the first quarter of 2007, an implementation plan for reducing emissions from port trucks. The ports broke that promise.
The ports promised to adopt, by spring 2007, “San Pedro Bay Standards,” limits that would commit the ports to reducing air pollution to levels that would help the region attain federal air quality standards. The ports broke that promise.
The ports promised to evaluate, by the second quarter of 2007, the use of “tariffs” to require port tenants to use cleaner marine fuels. The ports broke that promise.
The ports agreed to bring before their boards, by the third quarter of 2007, any appropriate tariff for adoption. The ports broke that promise.

“Many supported the plan because we believed it was more than just another bureaucratic exercise,” said Adrian Martinez, NRDC project attorney. “We thought the ports were moving away from a business-as-usual approach that compromises people’s health.”

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the single largest fixed-source of air pollution in Southern California. Pollution from the ports is responsible for more than 100 tons per day of smog and cancer-causing nitrogen oxides, more than the daily emissions from all 6 million cars in the region.

“The ports have met some of their targets, but they are failing to achieve several important milestones that will result in a noticeable improvement in the air we breathe,” said Melissa Lin Perrella, NRDC staff attorney. “The ports need to explain how a pattern of inaction and delay will ever lead us to clean air.”

Air pollution triggers blood clots: study

2007-09-20T18:05:00.001-07:00

Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:04pm EDT

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tiny particles of air pollution -- less than one tenth the width of a human hair -- can trigger clotting in the blood, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a finding that helps explain how air pollution causes heart attacks and strokes.

Large population studies have shown pollution from the exhaust of trucks, buses and coal-burning factories increases the risk of fatal heart attacks and strokes.

But researchers have not understood how these microscopic particles actually kill people.

"We now know how the inflammation in the lungs caused by air pollutants leads to death from cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Gokhan Mutlu of Northwestern University in Chicago, who studied the effects of air pollution in mice.

Lungs inflamed by pollution secrete interleukin-6, an immune system compound that sparks inflammation and has been shown to make blood more likely to clot.

The research appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. It follows a study last week in the New England Journal of Medicine that found breathing diesel fumes interfered with heart attack survivors' ability to break down blood clots.

Mutlu got a clue about the clotting issue two years ago when he was studying the effects of air pollution on heart failure in mice. Mice who had been exposed to pollution bled significantly less.

"They were forming blood clots," he said in a telephone interview.

In the latest study, he and colleagues exposed mice to particles of air pollution collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These were mixed with a saline solution and injected into the lungs of mice.

Mice exposed to pollution showed a 15-fold increase in interleukin-6 just 24 hours later. That time frame is important because some studies have shown a spike in air pollution can boost heart attacks with 24 hours.

Mutlu and colleague Dr. Scott Budinger said they were able to prevent this clotting by suppressing immune cells in the lungs called macrophages that attack foreign substances and secrete interleukin-6.

Mice with suppressed immune responses did not show increased blood clotting. "This suggested that interleukin-6 was the driving force," Mutlu said.

He said most people understand that high levels of air pollution can make lung diseases such as asthma worse.

"The same thing is not known for patients with coronary artery disease or congestive heart failure," Mutlu said. "I think we need to increase the awareness of this link among those individuals."

The researchers now plan to study whether aspirin can counteract the clotting effect in mice. Low-dose aspirin helps thin the blood and is already recommended for people with heart problems.

New Air Pollution Problems

2007-09-19T20:49:00.001-07:00

Among the atmospheric pollutants, there is new emphasis on tropospheric ozone, both because of its impact on the climate as a greenhouse gas, and because of the key chemical role that ozone plays in atmospheric chemical reactions, health impacts and environmental damage. Small particulates less than 10 microns in diameter are another recently recognized dangerous pollutant, causing early death among those suffering from lung and heart disease. This fine dust is produced by diesel exhausts, power stations and industry. The UK has estimated the safe level for these particles is exceeded in most cities 10 per cent of the time, causing 2,000 to 10,000 extra deaths a year (WHO, 1995; Martinson, 1996). Aerosols need to receive more attention, as they are now believed to play an important role in the climate change issue, but this has not been well assessed or quantified.

While acid rain has long been recognized as a problem in the industrial north, there is now evidence of the increasing danger of acid rain in South-East Asian countries (WMO). Emissions of sulphur dioxide have declined significantly in Europe and North America with reduced coal use and the application of emission clean-up techniques, and further progress is expected (EEA, 1995). This has reduced the sulphur contribution to acid rain, but surprisingly has also resulted in sulphur deficiencies in some agricultural soils, causing falling yields and the appearance of new diseases. (Schnug, Ewald, et al., 1995) A lack of sulphur may also contribute to increasing ozone pollution by reducing the ability of plants to oxidize it.

The same improvement has not been seen in nitrogen oxides and other pollutants from vehicles, where the reduction in emissions due to catalytic converters has been counterbalanced by a growing number of vehicles. Urban air quality in Europe has thus continued to deteriorate (EEA, 1995).

The worst pollution problems may appear in unexpected places, such as the Arctic, where high levels of toxins such as PCBs, DDT, toxaphene, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, lindane, dieldrin, mercury and dioxin have been found. There appears to be a global process of distillation where pollutants evaporate in warmer areas, are transported by winds to the Arctic, and then condense out to become concentrated in Arctic food chains (Kidd et al., 1995).

Roadside Diesel Pollution Poses Heat Danger

2007-09-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

By Gene Emery
BOSTON (Reuters) - Air pollution reduces blood flow and interferes with the body's natural ability to break up blood clots, researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that may help explain why pollution can cause heart attacks.

And the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also suggests that heart patients trying to shape up might do their exercising away from traffic.

The researchers tested 20 male volunteers, all of them heart attack survivors, who pedaled an exercise bike while breathing diluted fumes from the exhaust of an idling Volvo diesel engine.

The exposure was comparable to the pollution levels found while driving in traffic.

Doctors already know that long-term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of heart problems. The World Health Organization has estimated that it causes 800,000 premature deaths worldwide each year.

The new study looked at one particularly suspect element of air pollution and how it affected people over the short term.

Nicholas Mills of Britain's Edinburgh University and his colleagues found that when the volunteers breathed diesel fumes, their hearts were far more likely to be starved of oxygen than when they were breathing clean air.

And when they tested the blood of the men, they found that the fumes inhibited the body's natural system of breaking down the clots that can spark a heart attack or stroke.

That may explain the results of population-based studies showing that air pollution increases heart problems, they said.

It is not known exactly why the hearts became starved of oxygen or which substance in the exhaust was responsible for the effects.

"The study was specific in evaluating the effects of dilute diesel exhaust, an extremely complex mixture of particles and gases; it is not possible to glean which constituents of diesel exhaust were responsible for the observed effects," Dr. Murray Mittleman, of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, wrote in a commentary.

Although the study was only done on men with a previous heart attack, "these findings may represent the tip of an iceberg" and apply to anyone at risk for a heart attack, he said.

Exercise is already known to be beneficial and it especially decreases the risk that a person will have a heart attack while exerting themselves, Mittleman said.

"The risk-benefit ratio may be optimized if people exercise away from traffic when possible."

Copyright © 2007 Reuters

USM Develops Air Filter System

2007-09-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

PENANG: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has developed a practical and cost-effective method of tackling air pollution.

Local researchers have developed a workable system, known as Rice Husk Ash-Based Sorbent/Catalyst As A Novel Industrial Gas Cleaning Technology, to this end.

The innovation won USM the most distinguished Higher Education Minister Award during the recent International Exposition of Research and Inventions of Institutions of Higher Learning (Pecipta) 2007, held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

USM School of Chemical Engineering lecturer Prof Dr Abdul Rahman Mohamed initiated the research work seven years ago.

Project leader and department lecturer Dr Lee Keat Teong said the system was ready for commercialisation.

“We are even prepared to market this system in the United States,” he said.

The technology requires a custom-built model that channels the gas or waste from any agricultural factory to a filter bag, flowing through an absorber made from the ash of rice husks.

“It can remove 100% of the air pollutant,” Dr Lee said after a press conference to announce the outcome of the Pecipta event held in Kuala Lumpur from Aug 10 to 12.

Dr Lee said the rice-husk ash method could be used to remove pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide from the burning of industrial fuels, which caused acid rain and global warming.

Open Burning In Sarawak Contributing To Haze

2007-09-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

By STEPHEN THEN

MIRI: Open burning of agriculture waste in interior plantations has resulted in numerous incidents of wildfires in different parts of central and northern Sarawak; with many of these fires already measuring more than a square kilometre each.

These domestic sources of fires are starting to cause a veil of haze in several interior settlements in Kapit, as well as in coastal areas in the southern parts of Miri.

These fires within Sarawak are already visible as hotspots in satellite images.

Sarawak Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB) chief enforcement officer Dania Goyog, when contacted today, acknowledged that there are plantations operating in the central and northern regions that are currently carrying out open-burning activities.

He admitted there are some big fires ravaging in these plantations.

"These plantation companies had recently applied for permits from the NREB to burn their waste products. When we issued them the permits, the weather conditions throughout the state was good and there was no danger of haze or serious air pollution.

"The permits we issued them was for controlled burning on a limited scale. However, if the hazy situation in various parts of the state now gets worse, we will call for a total halt on open burning in the plantations.

"The permits we issued them can be revoked any time as and when we deem fit," he said when asked to comment on the fires which may get bigger if the weather becomes dry.

Sarawak is now experiencing strange weather changes. There was heavy rain less than a month ago and now the weather has became hot and dry, prompting plantation companies involved in the oil palm and timber industries to start open burning to get rid of their waste products.

When asked under what conditions the NREB would revoke the open-burning permits, Goyog said the board would do so as soon as the air pollutant index (API) reaches the unhealthy level at the specific area in question.

The NREB, he added, had also received information that there are forest fires in Kalimantan Borneo. If the haze from the Indonesian side were to sweep into Sarawak, and the domestic fires in Sarawak were to get bigger, the transboundary and domestic sources of haze would together create a sharp increase in the air pollutant index as was the case in recent years.

Taxing Environmental Abuse

2007-09-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Current Tax Matters
By JEYAPALAN KASIPILLAI

A significant problem associated with economic development is environmental abuse and its unforeseen disastrous effects.

Environmental degradation such as air and water pollution, deforestation, overuse and misuse of pesticides, shrinking of the ozone layer and global warming pose new challenges to most countries. Such problems are not alien to Malaysia.

Environmental abuse leads to the social cost of economic activities exceeding the social benefits they generate.

Environmental tax

Environmental taxes and subsidies are ways of sending proper signals to industry and consumers. These are necessary steps towards achieving sustainable patterns of consumption and production. For example, carbon tax will lower the consumption of fossil fuels while boosting the attractiveness of non-fossil-based renewable energy sources.

There is a range of possible fiscal changes in the existing tax structure that could be used to pursue environmental sustainability. Among others, two pertinent environmental objectives facing the Government revolve around improving air quality and sustainable waste management.

Haze is a constant threat and it can adversely affect tourism and the well being of the general public.

Spiralling economic activity and increased incomes have generated higher demand for personal travel and a hive of transport activity. Road transportation is recognised as the most air polluting industry in Malaysia and vehicles account for over 80% of the country’s air pollution.

Carbon dioxide represents a large part of all greenhouse gases emitted; hence, most policy objectives focus on carbon taxes. Advanced countries that have implemented some form of carbon taxes are Finland, in 1991; Norway and Sweden, 1991; and Denmark, 1992.

In Malaysia, there is no carbon tax but the Government provides incentives in the form of subsidies for the use of unleaded petrol. Hydrogen has the potential to lead to zero-emission transportation and will be an important fuel in the future. The Government should, therefore, exempt hydrogen from fuel duty, at least for a limited period.

Air pollution sources

Uncontrolled human activities result in deteriorating air quality. Human activities such as smoke emissions from motor vehicles, forest fires and electric power generation, lead to the emission of various pollutants into the atmosphere.

Fossil fuel combustion emitted by motor vehicle exhausts as well as industrial processes produce carbon monoxide (CO), a hazardous gas. According to the Statistics Department (2006), the concentration of CO is the highest in Port Klang, Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam and Kuala Lumpur compared with other parts of the country.

The main contributor to air pollution (82.3%) is mobile sources, and this is primarily due to a surge in the number of motor vehicles on the road. The remaining sources are industrial sectors and power stations.

The Government provides numerous incentives to promote the use of natural gas by motor vehicle owners. For example, local vehicle assemblers are given import duty exemption on chassis fitted with engines for natural gas vehicles (NGV), monogas buses and motor vehicles for transportation of goods. They are also given import duty exemption on NGV engines replacing diesel engines for buses and motor vehicles. Excise duty on motor vehicles should be reviewed to provide incentives to motorists who purchase less polluting vehicles.

The use of an indirect tax system provides an alternative to the introduction of market-based incentives for pollution control. The cost of implementation will be lower because it can use the existing administrative procedures available to the Royal Customs and Excise Department Malaysia.

Conclusion

The success (or failure) of remedial measures initiated by the Government to compensate for the abuse of the environment does not depend on isolated factors but on a complex combination of circumstances.

While full voluntary effort by each and every citizen to preserve the environment remains an elusive dream of every government, it is nevertheless prudent to take every practical measure to encourage its practice.

The Ninth Malaysia Plan reiterates the Government’s commitment to mitigating and minimising pollution and addressing other adverse environmental impact arising from development activities.

Among the efforts under way to achieve this are the Clean Air Action Plan, National Strategic Plan for Solid Waste Management and Integrated Coastal Zone Management Policy. The author welcomes these efforts but urges the Government to go a step further by formulating a comprehensive transport taxation policy to address some of the environmental sustainability objectives.

The writer is Professor and Chair of Malaysian Business at the School of Business, Monash University, Sunway Campus. He also serves as a member of the Taxation Law and Policy Research Institute, Monash University, Melbourne.

What is CFC

2007-09-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

Soucers : Department Of Environmental (DOE)
Published :18 Sept,2007

DO YOU KNOW.......

Our earth is protected by a thin ozone layer which filters out harmful ultra-violet (UV) rays

WHAT IS CFC?

CFC or Chloroflourocarbon is a chemical compound that contains atoms of carbon, flourine and chlorine. The chlorine atoms from CFCs can deplete the ozone layer and reduce its ability to protect against the ultra violet radiation consequently. The increase of ultra violet radiation from the sun will render serious negative effects to human and ecosystem such as increase cases of skin cancer, cataract and reduced immunity.
MONTREAL PROTOCOL ON SUBSTANCES THAT DEPLETE THE OZONE LAYER

The world community realised the importance of protecting the ozone layer and has acted decisively by committing themselves to phase out the use and production of ozone depleting substances (ODS) through an international treaty: the Montreal Protocol. Malaysia is one of the 190 countries that had signed the Protocol.

WHAT IS IN YOUR MOBILE AIR-CONDITIONER?

CFC 12 is the chemical use in the mobile air-conditioner (MAC) as refrigerant. It is also known commercially as R12 or FREON gas. Generally, CFC 12 is released into the atmosphere before the service for MAC is carried out.

WHEN CFC WILL BE PHASED OUT?

All developed countries stopped producing and consuming CFCs in 1996. Malaysia have stopped producing CFCs Mobile Air-conditioning System in year 2000 and ultimately will phase out the import of CFCs starting January 2010 as mandatory date under the Montreal Protocol.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO TO PROTECT THE OZONE LAYER AND YOURSELF?

· Have your CFC-12 MAC system is serviced regularly by a trained technician
· Have your CFC-12 MAC system serviced at an accredited service centre that is equipped with an approved refrigerant recovery and recycling machine
· Do not vent any refrigerant from your CFC-12 MAC system. It is an offence under the Environmental Quality (Refrigerant Management) Regulations, 1999
· Any new installation of CFC-12 MAC is prohibited under the Environmental Quality (refrigerant Management) Regulations, 1999
· Any person who handles CFC refrigerant from A MAC system must be trained and must possess an approved refrigerant recovery and recycling machine.
· Make sure that your HFC-134A MAC System is serviced at an accredited service centre by a trained technician to avoid unscrupulous practice of topping up your MAC with CFC-12 and being charged for the price of HFC-134A refrigerant
· Make sure that your HFC-134A MAC is not refilled with CFC-12 refrigerant because it will reduce the lifespan of your HFC-134A MAC compressor drastically or damage the MAC system due to unsuitability of the combination of CFC-12 refrigerant with the PAG oil used in the HFC-134A MAC system.

EPA Hauled Into Court Over Ship Smokestack Pollution

2007-09-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

Source: Environment News Service (ENS)
Published Sep. 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC, September 7, 2007 (ENS) - Friends of the Earth is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, for failing to meet a deadline to regulate air pollution from large ships. The federal agency recently postponed indefinitely its commitment to set emissions standards for ship engines.

On Wednesday, the environmental group sued the EPA in federal district court in Washington, DC to force the agency to impose limits on emissions.

'Air quality in port cities like Seattle and Oakland takes a beating every time a large ship pulls into dock,' said Teri Shore of Friends of the Earth in San Francisco.

'The Bush EPA promised to act months ago to rein in ship smokestack pollution, but instead they have delayed regulations. Port communities are fed up and suffering, that's why we went to court today,' she said.

Just one cargo or cruise ship in port can pollute as much as 350,000 cars, and major ports receive hundreds of ship calls a month, says Shore, yet the air pollution from large ships is an environmental justice issue facing port communities nationwide.

In Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Houston, pollution blows into neighborhoods where respiratory illness has become common.

In addition, EPA has failed to regulate pollution from foreign-flagged ships, which make up more that 80 percent of port traffic from large ocean-going vessels. These vessels are exempt from meeting the air quality standards required by U.S. law.

The EPA says it has been trying to establish worldwide maritime emissions standards by negotiating with the International Maritime Organization.

'The EPA's recent proposal to the International Maritime Organization would deliver cleaner air to all Americans and reduce pollution at nation's ports domestically and internationally,' the agency said in a statement.

The statement said the agency expects to issue proposed rules for reducing emissions at domestic ports, but gave no date for the rulemaking.

The ships burn dirty, asphalt-like bunker fuel that is thousands of times dirtier than diesel used by trucks or trains, and most operate with engines that pre-date even weak international standards.

The bunker fuel contains sulfur, nitrogen, ash, and other substances that turn into sulfur oxide, nitrous oxide, and other pollutants and greenhouse gases when burned, Shore says.

The ships steam into ports and sit, sometimes for days, awaiting their turn to dock and running their engines to generate electricity to operate ship systems. People who live near ports are exposed to high levels of diesel particulate matter and other pollutants, she says.

Smokestack emissions from the global shipping fleet are projected to double in North America in the next decade, Friends of the Earth will argue, exposing communities to diesel exhaust that contributes to respiratory illness, cancer, heart disease, and premature death.

Sarah Burt of the nonprofit, public interest law firm Earthjustice, which is representing the environmental group, says, 'In Los Angeles alone, the ships in port spew more pollution than the metro area's six million cars combined.'

'Residents of nearby neighborhoods have high rates of respiratory illness and the region's highest cancer risk,' said Burt. 'We're taking action today to fix this health hazard.'

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to establish regulations to reduce air pollution from non-automobile engines that significantly contribute to pollution in areas with poor air quality.

EPA committed to the April 2007 deadline to regulate ocean-going vessel emissions in a 2003 Final Rule approved by the Washington, DC, Circuit Court of Appeals. This was in response to a previous lawsuit by Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice challenging lack of agency action on pollution from large ocean-going vessels.

So far, the plaintiffs argue, the agency has relied on weak international standards that provide no air quality benefits in U.S. waters, partly because many of the ships operating here are registered in foreign countries that are not party to the relevant international agreements.

A federal government review of international standards was recently delayed by nearly two years.

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, recently introduced the Marine Vessel Emissions Act of 2007 (SB 1499) that would require cleaner fuels and engines in all ocean-going vessels calling on U.S. ports. Also a California Democrat, Congresswoman Hilda Solis introduced the same legislation in the House of Representatives (HR 2548).

EPA Takes Innovative Approach to Clear the Air at the Nation`s Ports

2007-09-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Published Sep. 7, 2007

(Elizabeth, N.J.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved the nation’s supply chain closer to a cleaner, fuel-efficient and cost-effective future today as EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson announced a project to develop and test a new EPA-patented technology on large equipment used to move goods and products from ships to trucks. These heavy duty diesel machines, called yard hostlers, contribute to air pollution generated in ports throughout the world. EPA’s hydraulic hybrid technology, which is currently being tested in several UPS vehicles, is being readied for use in yard hostlers, the most common work vehicle used at loading docks. The hybrid vehicles will feature a unique hydraulic hybrid power train that can generate, recover, store and reuse braking power with very little air pollution.

“EPA and our partners are working together to ensure that America’s ports become harbors of clean air,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “Together, we are moving breakthroughs in hybrid technology from the labs to the docks – improving air quality while saving fuel. This technology is good for our environment, good for our economy, and good for our nation’s energy security.”

Port Authority Port Commerce Director Richard M. Larrabee said, 'We've made tremendous strides toward becoming an environmentally friendly port, but we need to do more if we are to continue to be recognized as a national leader in this area. The new program we are announcing today -- coupled with existing programs to preserve environmentally sensitive land, build new rail facilities that will reduce our dependence on trucks, and retrofit ferries with cleaner-burning engines -- will allow us to maintain a sustainable port well into the future.'

The hybrid vehicles will use a diesel-hydraulic system that will combine the cleanest available diesel engine technology with components that use hydraulic fluid compression to store energy. The hostlers will feature hydraulic hybrid power trains, which are unique hydraulic hybrid propulsion systems that provide power to the drive axles. Hydraulic tanks are used to store energy, in contrast to the less efficient batteries used in electric hybrid vehicles. Like other hybrid systems, energy saved when applying the brakes is reused to help accelerate the vehicle.

The hydraulic hybrid technology is expected to improve the fuel efficiency of the yard tractor by 50 to 60 percent, reduce or eliminate emissions during idling, and decrease brake wear. The same hydraulic hybrid technology that has shown dramatic energy efficiency improvements in delivery trucks can be applied to other equipment used to move goods around. The UPS hydraulic hybrid truck shows potential savings of 1,000 gallons of fuel per year where most delivery trucks are driven. This demonstration project will prove the effectiveness of hybrid hydraulic technologies on yard hostlers and it has the potential for widespread domestic and international adoption because the technology is easily installed, requires no major changes to a vehicle’s operating system or fueling requirements.

Reducing diesel emissions is a goal of EPA's National Clean Diesel Campaign. Replacing the current non-road certified diesel yard tractors with cleaner more efficient, on-road engines that will meet future certification standards will provide immediate and significant emission reductions. The goal is to develop a hybrid drive system that will include a diesel engine that meets the 2007 and 2010 on-road diesel standards. An engine meeting the 2010 standard will also achieve 93% reductions in NOx and 93% reductions in particulate matter compared to an ordinary diesel yard tractor. The hydraulic hybrid technology is expected to further reduce emissions by eliminating emissions from the internal combustion engine during idling.

One of EPA’s many responsibilities is to promote environmentally-friendly trade practices and products related to the support of the U.S. Trade Representative in negotiating new international trade agreements. Recognizing the potential this project has to transform a key but relatively unknown element of the global supply chain, EPA has already provided $205,000 to fund this initiative and will also provide more financial and technical support next year.

Key partners in the project include the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, A.P.M. Terminals, Kalmar Industries, Parker Hannifin Corporation and the Port of Rotterdam, with which EPA will share project information.

A.E.S. 1977 paper to with plating emission problems

2007-09-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

By Freeman Newton
Originally published Aug. 2007

A.E.S. PAPER

The following paper has NOT been altered whatsoever. Some notes a) A.E.S. stands for American Electroplating Society. b) the mention of l¼ million cfm is now incorrect as it is well over 3 million cfm c) The Grandview E.C.E. scrubber is a condensed name for Eliminate, Coalesce, Eliminate …. and this design is called by various names such as LMS …low micron scrubber and LMITS …low micron inertial type scrubber. d) the common scrubbing agent was always NaOH ….until the inertial blade type scrubbers appeared where by happen chance one found out that ordinary water was OK e) Bright Dip is the name given to a nitric phosphoric mix for cleaning aluminum, enormous ‘fumes’ are generated ! At STAYSA in Brantford I used to use an alkali to scrub the fumes using, like everyone else did, NaOH, as this plant was in a valley and the air monitoring people would check it out frequently … and then, during a visit, I checked the alkaline tank but the immigrant operator, whose English was poor, said … Only Aqua, aqua, aqua …. thereby indicating that the neutralizing liquid was NOT alkaline but just ordinary water. f) CFM stands for cubic feet per minute.e) italics stand for insertions and explanations as of July 2007 … 30 years hence.

INTRODUCTION

The author, Freeman Newton, has held various papers on plastics in the past including “Ventilation and the possibility of Air Recycle” at the l976 A.E.S. conference. He has been deeply involved in eliminator concepts, imported the T-100 blades into North America and is the designer of the Grandview E.C.E. inertial scrubber.

THE PLATER AND AIR POLLUTION

Does the present dayplater have greater overheads than his predecessors ? Of course he does ! One of the main reasons lies in the increasing costs of pollution control. This article deals with exhaust air requirements, suggests some ways of reducing CFM, and reports on the importance of ‘Dry Scrubbers” why dry scrubbing techniques work and how they can be used.

EQUIPMENT APPROVALS

No one likes a burocrat nor do we like to be told to do this or do that particularly as this and that involves not only a cash outlay but also recurring costs (eg. conventional scrubber operations) There are the Dept. of Labour (Ontario) requirements for a safe breathable in-plant environment. Having satisfied their standards, the exhausted air has then to meet the Ministry of the Environment (Ontario) air pollution standards. Should you politely ask the authorities what CFM you should exhaust, you might end up having an excellent exhaust system …but pay a fortune in heating costs. They will be or can be very helpful but their task is to try to ensure a safe environment, to vet designs, to set standards …but not to design ventilation equipment.

A very good book is INDUSTRIAL VENTILATION (Box 453, Lansing in Michigan, USA) . This is an excellent reference book whether you want to vent a tank or design a garage exhaust system. It shows fumehood designs and tables for calculating the amount of air (CFM) that a given process requires. If it errs it is because it uses inbuilt safety factors. Use it and the extraction will be very good – but again at a cost in BTUs.

ENERGY

In July 1977 the cost of one solitary CFM in terms of fuel required to heat the air to 65°F (24 hour operation) in the Toronto suburbs was 58¢ for oil and 36¢ gas per CFM per year. Can we save energy when we have got to exhaust some process? No. But you can design an extraction system that allows you to reduce the CFM and hence the fuel bill. In the case of some acids (eg sulphuric) or alkalines you could air recycle and save considerable fuel costs.

VENTILATION DESIGN - Caveat Emptor

You can pay initially less for a poorly designed ventilation system or one using incorrect materials (eg. galvanized steel for Chromic) but you will end up paying much more in the long run !

Maybe you should be a little suspicious of anyone trying to sell you an extract system. Is he just trying to make a sale? Does he take your problems to heart, does he know his materials, is he capable of proper design (if so, check out his past performance), does he use slot adjusters and/or dampers (an absolute must !), can he reduce your CFM ? Other considerations are the type of fan, will it or should it require vibration isolators – and especially will the final system meet existing pollution standards?

CONTROLLING EMISSIONS

The name of the game is CONTROL. If you can capture the emissions at source: if you can reduce the “width or length” of your tanks, you will reduce not only your heating bill but then also negative air conditions.

One way is to regard your tanks as if they had tight fitting lids into which you had to cut a hole just big enough for your rack or whatever. Anyhow where feasible why not at least shroud the areas that the anodes or cathodes take up. This area only contributes to higher CFM costs.

Progressive Anodizing in Toronto came up with the idea of making up a simple narrow semi-immersed hoodlet to collect and vent off all the hydrogen bubbling up from the cathodes. Now there is much more to this idea than meets the eye. In this case (Sulphuric anodizing) the bubbles of hydrogen burst in a typical fashion as they hit the surface and form very small droplets of acid. In other words, theoretically, most of the exhaust requirements in this situation are due to this local electrolytic action. This means that the rest of their push-pull 50 foot ventilation system should be able to reduce CFM requirements way, way below the so-called standards. Intelligent thoughts, well executed, mean less precious fuel being consumed in wintertime.

GAS STREAMS DO NOT EXIST!

Nearly all ambient temperature emissions of acids or alkalines are NOT gas streams. The term “gas stream” is a vague definition so often repeated that it is accepted as a fact.

The great majority of environmentally hazardous acid or alkali fumes at ambient temperature emissions consist of invisible to the eye droplets of liquid in an airstream are in the 2µm to 40µm range.

This phenomena is not generally realized by most engineers or chemists – and therefore they are blissfully unaware that inertial devices (especially the very high efficiency horixontal eliminators) can be just as effective as wet packed tower scrubbers in some cases – and yet operate ‘dry’, hence virtual collection of all the acid fumes and no demand for alkali scrubbing liquors.

In the plating industry this is definitely the case with Chromic … or Sulphuric … or Phosphoric etc … and to a lesser extent with Hydrochloric but only to a minor extent with pure Nitric.

The worst of the common acids is Nitric and the associated thoughts of NOX and brown plumes. Mixed with HF, Hydrofluoric, the most dangerous acid as far as skin contact is concerned, you have a very potent mix. Nitric acid fumes contain NHO3 droplets plus NO, N2O4, N2O3 as well as NO, the cause of the brown plume.

NO2 PLUME REMOVAL

NO2 brown plumes are not easy to remove as many a plant engineer may bear witness. The reddish brown plume is bad for three reasons. Firstly it is an eyesore (and many a complaint to the authorities is based on a visible plume). Secondly, it probably masks other emissions. Lastly, it eventually combines with the air moisture and sunlight to reform Nitric acid as do also the other NOX components.

Even to-day some people or Companies have not been able to remove it. So there is a certain amount of negative it-can’t-be-done feeling based on solid fact ….but fact based on conventional methods.

There are, in the ambient temperature spectrum, two types of NO2 plumes (EPA, please note !). The dry condition and the wetted plume where other chemicals are also vented in a common system containing the nitric fumes. The dry emission is much more difficult to conquer as the brown plume is a pure gas. The solution ? So far inertial separation can be made to work for the wetted airstream but the dry plume must somehow be moisturized and then removed intertially.

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

My thanks go to the manager of a large Ontario plating plant (Kuntz Electroplating) who was venting a hot nickel strip tank (concentrated nitric). He said he was sure that his brown plume was wet. At that time we had serious reservations about nitric plumes (which is another way of saying that we were scared witless).but based on what he had said, we felt sure we could remove hit wet brown plume. It turned out hat we were both quite wrong.

The apparent wetness of his plume was due to droplets of pure nitric. The first attempts of removing the plume itself failed, a few modifications later and the plume disappeared. Had we both known the true facts beforehand we probably would never have used the inertial approach. There will be disbelievers but you cannot knock success even if it is arrived at by roundabout means.

THE INERTIAL APPROACH
viz.. the capture by inertial deflection and consequent impaction of droplets onto a mist eliminator profile.

Grandview have been airflow engineering and making mist eliminators using sine-curve vane profiles for over five years. Well over l¼ million CFM of dry scrubbers has been made in its Mississauga plant Toronto plant involving, in most cases, virtual total acid recovery and therefore amortization of equipment costs to the end user.

The so-called T-120/2 ( 2 banks of T-100 blades @ 20 mm centres) goes down to 10 micron capture, the recent Grandview, my, invention of the E.C.E. inertial scrubber goes down to the 2 or 3 micron range – with one Company reporting 0.5 micron acid capture using reagents. The E.C.E. being particularly suitable for NO2 plume removal in such operations as Brightdip etc. Actual tests by INCO # 2 RESEARCH indicated removal of 0.2 to 0.8 microns at 86% efficiency. This was in a sulphuric airstream.

This technology has helped Grandview considerably to export their products – technology gained by theory and then experimentation. However to many people, the word ‘mist eliminator’ is synonymous with many relatively crude droplet devices. Droplet capture from a generating device such as a packed tower, wetted cyclone etc is fairly simple to achieve. But to produce a sophisticated eliminator (eg. dry scrubber) requires careful airflow engineering of all the components ! (ie. inlet transition angle, sump depth, blade overlapping)

The failure rate has been surprisingly low – on the other hand it was initially extremely difficult to persuade customers that the high velocity inertial route would work and solve their problems particularly as in those earlier years we could not draw on anyone else’s experience in this field. In retrospect it appears that Grandview was the first Company (in North America) and maybe in the world to very successfully remove various acid emissions, recycle the chemicals, meet pollution standards – and yet thereby often permit the end user too amortize his investment by acid recovery.

Remember, within the previously mentioned stipulation, GAS STREAMS DO NOT EXIST ….. and if they do not exist, just what is the point (and cost) of using a packed tower scrubber when inertial capture may work?

Fun with particle pollution

2007-09-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

Posted on Sun, Sep. 16, 2007

Smear a little Vaseline on an index card, weigh it, stick it up in the air and leave it there. Take it down a day later and weigh it again, and that gives you an idea of how much particulate pollution's in the air. The tiny particles stick to the card.

Neat, huh? Doing nifty science experiments like that is just one of the advantages to having air so polluted that it's exceeding federal air quality standards. Another advantage is that when local leaders learn the federal government's about to force us to clean up our air, they try to clean it up first.

That's what happened in the late 1990s when folks here heard the Columbus area was exceeding the limit on ground-level ozone pollution: They formed a task force and came up with ways to get businesses, governments and average residents to reduce ozone pollution.

But then the weather changed locally while nationally the feds imposed new regulations on major ozone producers, and ozone readings dropped. That got the feds to back off, so everyone quit worrying about ozone and slacked off.

The good news is our air's now so polluted that we're finally going to have to do something about it, again, and the bad news is it's polluted with tiny particles.

The difference

Ozone typically is a problem only in the summer, on bright sunny days when the air is stagnant and chemicals from fuels and car exhaust float up and cook in the sunlight to form ozone molecules. Each ozone molecule's made of three oxygen atoms. Unlike the stable oxygen molecule of two oxygen atoms, ozone's very unstable, and goes around looking for ways to ditch its extra atom. Breathe it and it can damage lung tissue.

Particulate pollution hangs around all year long. It's made of microscopic particles that drift in the air and cause all sorts of problems.

The airborne particles the feds limit are 2.5 microns, about a hundredth the diameter of a human hair. Unless they're in a cloud of larger particles, like wood smoke, you don't notice them usually, but you can breathe them deep into your lungs. That can lead to heart and respiratory ailments, and that's why the feds limit particulates.

Now what?

So now the air in Columbus and Phenix City is over the particle limit, and if we don't do something about that, the feds are going to say we have failed to attain their air quality standard. That's called "nonattainment." Once you're in nonattainment, just about anything you do that could increase air pollution -- like recruit a major industry or build a big road -- invites federal oversight for the next 20 years.

That scares local business and government leaders. A road project now takes about seven years to finish. In nonattainment, it would take longer as the feds reviewed its effect on air quality, and it might not happen at all. A major employer might be unable to expand. An industry thinking of coming here might decide to go elsewhere.

In December 2008, the feds are to decide who's in nonattainment and who's not. Between now and then, they want us to prove we're working to clean up our air. If we can show we're making an effort, that can keep us out of nonattainment.

DENR urged to junk $1.3-M air pollution monitoring project

2007-09-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

By ARTEMIO DUMLAO
The Philippine Star

BAGUIO CITY – Environment Secretary Lito Atienza was urged Friday to abandon a $1.3-million air pollution monitoring project proposed by his predecessor, now Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes.

Clemente Bautista Jr., environmental group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment national coordinator, said the Ambient Air Pollution Monitoring Project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Guam-based Emissions Technology Inc. (ETI) has failed to produce credible data on Metro Manila’s state of air pollution.

“Hence, it should be terminated,” he said.

Bautista said the level of air pollution in Metro Manila is reportedly hitting record-highs and yielding silent but deadly effects on the people’s health and the environment.

“What’s atrociously unfortunate about the Ambient Air Monitoring Project is that the defective data it produced will not help in creating policies that can mitigate or reduce current levels of pollution in Metro Manila,” he said.

Bautista warned that at least five thousand Metro Manilans are dying each year from the effects of such unmitigated air pollution.

Thousands more are getting sick with respiratory diseases exacerbated by exposure to various pollutants in the air, he added.

Bautista said they want to rebut Atienza’s claim that the Letter of Undertaking submitted by ETI president Robert Wilson to Reyes on July 16, 2007 only means that the DENR basically showed the “intention to proceed with the contract.”

“But on the contrary, the LoU expressly states that the DENR-EMB shall pay ETI the full amount of $1,314,776.49 within five days after ETI posts a performance bond of only $44,000,” he said.

Had the project not been exposed to the public earlier, the DENR might have handed ETI the full payment for their air pollution monitoring stations around Metro Manila, Bautista said.

Ten air monitoring stations were set up throughout Metro Manila to measure ambient air (or air outside and surrounding an air pollution source location) and pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone, particulate matter and total suspended solids.

MeCorp to launch EnviroPlus air pollution solutions

2007-09-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

MeCorp will be launching the first ever non-petrochemical based lubricant EnviroPlus, in order to significantly reduce air pollution caused by the transport industry.
The launch initiated by MeCorp has received great response from U.A.E Federal Environmental Agency (FEA) and Ministry of Environment And Water.

EnviroPlus, a uniquely patented product from USA, certified with US - Environmental Protection Agency and American Petroleum Institute, is designed to considerably cut down toxic emissions (hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxides and sulphur). US EPA lab test confirms that EnviroPlus is 99% clean upon ignition and ash less upon combustion and free of any carcinogens. It is a high quality environmental friendly non-toxic, non-hazardous mineral based lubricant which eliminates toxic emissions by 20-50 percent depending on the fuel and engine type. It is more effective on diesel based engines.

'We definitely know this will solve the air pollution problem caused by the transport industry by 15 - 20% and save consumers money on gas mileage as well," said Hassan Naqvi, Managing Director of MeCorp.

EnviroPlus has been through research for past ten years and is designed to work with any fuel used in cars, trucks, buses and cranes whether its gasoline, diesel, methanol, CNG, LNG or next generation fuels. It aims to make the fuels self-cleansing and lubricating. This leads to smooth functioning of engine parts, resulting in increased fuel economy and extended maintenance intervals and significantly reduces toxic emissions.

'We are aware that 70 percent of air pollution is caused by the transportation and construction industry in U.A.E. The product will be available for the diesel-powered engines in the market early next year as soon as the distribution and logistics channels are confirmed for Middle East, North Africa and Subcontinent region," said Hassan Naqvi. "We would like to thank the U.A.E. Federal Environment Agency and Ministry of Environment and Water for supporting this initiative and coordinating with local authorities concerned on our behalf.'

Should United State Ratify Kyoto Protocol

2007-09-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty intended to bring countries together to reduce global warming and to cope with the effects of temperature increases that are unavoidable after 150 years of industrialization. The provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are legally binding on the ratifying nations, and stronger than those of the UNFCCC.
Countries that ratify the Kyoto Protocol agree to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs and PFCs. The countries are allowed to use emissions trading to meet their obligations if they maintain or increase their greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions trading allows nations that can easily meet their targets to sell credits to those that cannot.

Lowering Emissions Worldwide
The goal of the Kyoto Protocol is to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Compared to the emissions levels that would occur by 2010 without the Kyoto Protocol, however, this target actually represents a 29 percent cut.

The Kyoto Protocol sets specific emissions reduction targets for each industrialized nation, but excludes developing countries. To meet their targets, most ratifying nations would have to combine several strategies:

place restrictions on their biggest polluters
manage transportation to slow or reduce emissions from automobiles
make better use of renewable energy sources—such as solar power, wind power, and biodiesel—in place of fossil fuels
Most of the world’s industrialized nations support the Kyoto Protocol. One notable exception is the United States, which releases more greenhouse gases than any other nation and accounts for more than 25 percent of those generated by humans worldwide. Australia also declined.

Background
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. It was opened for signature on March 16, 1998, and closed a year later. Under terms of the agreement, the Kyoto Protocol would not take effect until 90 days after it was ratified by at least 55 countries involved in the UNFCCC. Another condition was that ratifying countries had to represent at least 55 percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions for 1990.
The first condition was met on May 23, 2002, when Iceland became the 55th country to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. When Russia ratified the agreement in November 2004, the second condition was satisfied, and the Kyoto Protocol entered into force on February 16, 2005.

As a U.S. presidential candidate, George W. Bush promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Shortly after he took office in 2001, however, President Bush withdrew U.S. support for the Kyoto Protocol and refused to submit it to Congress for ratification.

An Alternate Plan
Instead, Bush proposed a plan with incentives for U.S. businesses to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions 4.5 percent by 2010, which he claimed would equal taking 70 million cars off the road. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, however, the Bush plan actually would result in a 30 percent increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions over 1990 levels instead of the 7 percent reduction the treaty requires. That’s because the Bush plan measures the reduction against current emissions instead of the 1990 benchmark used by the Kyoto Protocol.

While his decision dealt a serious blow to the possibility of U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol, Bush wasn’t alone in his opposition. Prior to negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution saying the U.S. should not sign any protocol that failed to include binding targets and timetables for both developing and industrialized nations or that "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.”

Arguments For
Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol claim that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an essential step in slowing or reversing global warming, and that immediate multinational collaboration is needed if the world is to have any serious hope of preventing devastating climate changes.
Scientists agree that even a small increase in the average global temperature would lead to significant climate and weather changes, and profoundly affect plant, animal and human life on Earth.

Warming Trend
Many scientists estimate that by the year 2100 the average global temperature will increase by 1.4 degrees to 5.8 degrees Celsius (approximately 2.5 degrees to 10.5 degrees Fahrenheit). This increase represents a significant acceleration in global warming. For example, during the 20th century the average global temperature increased only 0.6 degrees Celsius (slightly more than 1 degree Fahrenheit).

This acceleration in the build-up of greenhouse gases and global warming is attributed to two key factors:

the cumulative effect of 150 years of worldwide industrialization; and
factors such as overpopulation and deforestation combined with more factories, gas-powered vehicles and machines worldwide.
Action Needed Now
Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol argue that taking action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could slow or reverse global warming, and prevent or mitigate many of the most severe problems associated with it. Many view the U.S. rejection of the treaty as irresponsible, and accuse President Bush of pandering to the oil and gas industries.

Because the United States accounts for so many of the world’s greenhouse gases and contributes so much to the problem of global warming, some experts have suggested that the Kyoto Protocol cannot succeed without U.S. participation.

Arguments Against
Arguments against the Kyoto Protocol generally fall into three categories: it demands too much; it achieves too little; or it is unnecessary.
In rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, which 178 other nations had accepted, President Bush claimed that the treaty requirements would harm the U.S. economy, leading to economic losses of $400 billion and costing 4.9 million jobs. Bush also objected to the exemption for developing nations. The president’s decision brought heavy criticism from U.S. allies and environmental groups in the U.S. and around the world.

Kyoto Critics Speak Out
Some critics, including a few scientists, are skeptical of the underlying science associated with global warming and say there is no real evidence that Earth’s surface temperature is rising due to human activity. For example, Russia’s Academy of Sciences called the Russian government's decision to approve the Kyoto Protocol "purely political," and said that it had "no scientific justification."

Some opponents say the treaty doesn’t go far enough to reduce greenhouse gases, and many of those critics also question the effectiveness of practices such as planting forests to produce emissions trading credits that many nations are relying on to meet their targets. They argue that planting forests may increase carbon dioxide for the first 10 years owing to new forest growth patterns and the release of carbon dioxide from soil.

Others believe that if industrialized nations reduce their need for fossil fuels, the cost of coal, oil and gas will go down, making them more affordable for developing nations. That would simply shift the source of the emissions without reducing them.

Finally, some critics say the treaty focuses on greenhouse gases without addressing population growth and other issues that affect global warming, making the Kyoto Protocol an anti-industrial agenda rather than an effort to address global warming. One Russian economic policy advisor even compared the Kyoto Protocol to fascism.

Where it Stands
Despite the Bush Administration’s position on the Kyoto Protocol, grass-roots support in the U.S. remains strong. By June 2005, 165 U.S. cities had voted to support the treaty after Seattle led a nationwide effort to build support, and environmental organizations continue to urge U.S. participation.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration continues to seek alternatives. The U.S. was a leader in forming the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, an international agreement announced July 28, 2005 at meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The United States, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and the People’s Republic of China agreed to collaborate on strategies to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the 21st century. ASEAN nations account for 50 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, population and GDP. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which imposes mandatory targets, the new agreement allows countries to set their own emissions goals, but with no enforcement.

At the announcement, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the new partnership would complement the Kyoto agreement: “I think climate change is a problem and I don't think Kyoto is going to fix it...I think we've got to do so much more than that.”

Looking Ahead
Whether you support U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol or oppose it, the status of the issue is unlikely to change soon. President Bush continues to oppose the treaty, and there is no strong political will in Congress to alter his position, although the U.S. Senate voted in 2005 to reverse its earlier prohitibion against mandatory pollution limits.

The Kyoto Protocol will go forward without U.S. involvement, and the Bush Administration will continue to seek less demanding alternatives. Whether they will prove to be more or less effective than the Kyoto Protocol is a question that won’t be answered until it may be too late to plot a new course.

From Larry West

Tips for those with respiratory conditions

2007-09-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

September 12, 2007 – 8:16 PM

• Don't exercise along roads with heavy truck or bus traffic.

• Exercise in the early morning or in the evening, when air pollution levels generally are lower.

• If your commute is on a heavily congested road, wait several hours before exercising.

• Exercise indoors whenever possible.

• Check the federal air quality index site for pollution levels:

• If you have chest pain or trouble breathing while exercising, stop and contact your doctor or go to a hospital

Pollution: Dangerous to Joggers

2007-09-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Sep. 12, 2007 By ALICE PARK

Living in a bustling, vibrant city can certainly expose you to a lot of things, not the least of which is air pollution. Tiny particulates in the air have always been a risk for the lungs, setting off respiratory illness like asthma and emphysema, and researchers from Scotland now report that the heavily contaminated air in urban areas could also be hazardous to the heart.

Led by Dr. Nicholas Mills of the University of Edinburgh, the Scottish team found that during exercise, heart patients who inhaled as much diesel exhaust as is typically found in heavily trafficked cities (about 300 mcgs of particulate matter per cubic meter of air) increased the stress on their hearts by threefold, compared with control patients who exercised in cleaner air. In addition, patients who breathed the exhaust showed a drop in blood levels of the protein t-PA, or tissue plasminogen activator, which inhibits the formation of blood clots that can trigger heart attacks. "This suggests that patients exercising in a polluted area might be putting their heart under additional strain," says Mills, "We also found that even six hours after the one-hour exposure to air pollution, there are still adverse effects on the way blood vessels respond."

Previous studies have shown that breathing in particulates in pollution can trigger potent inflammatory reactions in the body, which can in turn lead to the destabilization of fatty plaques in heart arteries; if the plaques rupture, they can block blood flow and cause a heart attack. In addition, says Mills, because diesel exhaust particles are so small — in the nanometer range — they may be passing directly from the lungs into the blood and aggravating plaques and blood vessels. Mills chose to focus on diesel particles since diesel engines spew out as much as 100 times the pollutants as petroleum based car engines.

And he isn't the first to reveal the damaging effects of pollution on the heart. A recent U.S. study reported that exposure to polluted air boosts the risk of death from heart disease by 76%, while a trial in Germany found that heart attack rates in a group of people sitting in traffic — in a car or bus, or riding a bicycle — rose in the hour after they had been exposed to the exhaust fumes. A series of studies from countries around the world has also documented that heart attack rates are higher on days when air-pollution indices rise. "There is growing evidence that there is a relationship there," says Dr. Murray Mittleman of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

So, is jogging along a city street out of the question? Not quite. Most, but not all, studies have found a detrimental relationship between pollution and the heart. More importantly, a fear of city smog shouldn't keep you from working out. "People should exercise where and when they can," advises Mittleman. "If your only choice is exercising in a setting that is not perfectly protected from air quality, then you will probably get more benefit from exercise than risk. On the other hand, if you have a choice, it's probably better to exercise away from traffic when you can." You may not actually get anywhere on a treadmill, but at least you'll be keeping your heart safe from some extra stress.

On the waterfront: Air pollution still rising at Port

2007-09-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

By Kristopher Hanson, Staff columnist
14/09/2007

It's a case of economic growth outstripping environmental initiative at the Port of Long Beach, as a new survey shows air pollution volumes rising by double-digit levels in recent years, despite the best efforts of industry and regulators.

Between 2002 and 2005, volumes of smog-forming pollution from ships, trains and trucks visiting the port jumped by between 11 and 15 percent.

Growth in pollutants would probably have been worse if not for the increased use of cleaner fuels and new engines by port industry, as the number of containers handled in Long Beach increased 48 percent during the same timeframe.

The survey, conducted by port environmental engineers and coming on the heels of a similar survey by the Port of Los Angeles, showed total diesel particulate matter (DPM) rising by 11 percent and nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide by 15 percent.

The rise in diesel particulate matter, which includes a very fine soot capable of lodging deep into human lungs, is probably the most disturbing because of its impact on the people who work and live near the port complex.

Health studies have linked this pollution to increased risk of asthma, cancer and heart disease. Communities around San

Pedro Bay already have among the highest rates of childhood asthma in California.
The neighboring Port of Los Angeles on Sept. 7 released a similar survey showing increases in fine and ultra-fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.

In coming years, authorities in both ports hope to reverse pollution impacts to year 2000 levels by negotiating "green leases" with terminal operators, implementing a rapid turnover of drayage trucks, encouraging the use of dockside electricity and low-sulfur fuels by ships and replacing many of the port complex's dirty diesel trains.

Eye of the storm

Screenings of a new documentary on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) drew several thousand people, including many political leaders, to San Pedro's historic Warner Grand Theater on Friday and Monday.

"Eye of the Storm," produced by the union and directed by award-winning filmmaker Aimee Williams, explores the 2002 labor battle between shipping companies and West Coast dockworkers, which included a 10-day lockout that nearly crippled the U.S. economy.

The 59-minute film is punctuated by informative and often colorful interviews with key players and negotiators, many of which were recorded at the height of the crisis in September and October of that year.

The film also documents the union's history, from its birth in the bloody waterfront strikes of 1934 to its evolution through industry mechanization, computer technology and beyond.

The union is making tens of thousands of DVD copies for members and the public free of charge.

To obtain a free copy, visit www.ilwu.org.

Kristopher Hanson can be reached at kristopher.hanson@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1466.

8:48 a.m. -- Yellow air quality alert issued for Treasure Valley today

2007-09-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

Statesman Staff - Idaho Statesman
Edition Date: 13/09/07

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has issued a yellow air quality alert.
This forecast may be revised this afternoon should smoke impacts worsen in the Treasure Valley.

All open outdoor burning is prohibited in Ada and Canyon County by municipal and county ordinance.

Hot temperatures, wildfire smoke, and vehicle emissions are creating high levels of PM 2.5. and ozone.

Sensitive individuals may want to consider postponing strenuous activities until air quality improves.

People are asked to consider taking some of the following actions to reduce air pollution during this period:

• Limit driving.

• Combine trips & errands.

• Don't burn outdoors.

• Fill your tank and mow your yard in the evening after temperatures cool down

Study: Pollution Raises Exercise Risks

2007-09-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

Study Says People With Heart Disease Should Exercise Indoors to Avoid Breathing Polluted Air

By LINDA A. JOHNSON Associated Press Writer
Sep 12, 2007 (AP)

People with heart disease may want to steer clear of heavy traffic when exercising or simply take their workout indoors to avoid breathing polluted air.

Exercising in areas with high levels of diesel exhaust and microscopic soot particles is especially risky for people with heart disease, according to the first study in which heart patients were directly exposed to pollution.

European researchers found that brief exposure to diluted diesel exhaust during exercise reduced a key anticlotting substance in the blood and worsened exercise-induced ischemia, or insufficient flow of blood and oxygen to the heart changes that can trigger a heart attack and even death.

"We now have evidence that being exposed to diesel fuel during exercise will cause cardiac ischemia and that if you have heart disease, it can only make things worse," said Dr. Abraham Sanders, a lung specialist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital who was not involved in the study.

The results have big implications: About 16 million Americans have heart disease, according to the American Heart Association. In addition, people with asthma, bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also should use caution and avoid polluted air when exercising, Sanders recommended. But heart and respiratory patients should keep exercising regularly because it is so beneficial to overall health, doctors stress.

Numerous studies have shown a link between short-term and long-term exposure to air pollution and higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths due to poor blood supply to the heart, abnormal heart rhythms, gradual heart failure and stroke.

This study adds to that knowledge about how air pollution harms people and aims to show what pollution is doing in the body, information that might eventually give clues for preventing such problems, said Dr. Howard M. Kipen, director of clinical research at Rutgers University's Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute.

"It's quite amazing, what they found," but not a surprise, he said. Still, "most doctors aren't aware that little bits of pollution can cause heart attacks."

Electrifying public transport seen helping cut deadly pollution

2007-09-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Philippines' first electric-powered jeep (L) running on a test drive side by side with a traditional jeepney (R) during rush hour in the Makati financial district in Manila. The e-jeepneys, as they are known, need to be capable of running on the mean streets of the Philippines where overloaded vehicles, potholes, reckless driving and even the occasional flood are all part of any normal day for the standard jeepney.(AFP/File/Romeo Gacad)

by Mynardo Macaraig
Thu Sep 13, 3:34 AM ET

MANILA (AFP) - In the Philippines, the smoke-belching "jeepney" that has been the backbone of commuter transport for half a century is also said to be one of the biggest contributors to air pollution.

In Manila, a city of 12 million people, commuters spend hours packed like sardines inside jeepneys breathing in the toxic air.

Some 2,000 people die each year in the Philippines, most of them in Manila, due to the effects of air pollution and more than 9,000 suffer from chronic bronchitis, a 2002 World Bank study found.

The cost to the economy in days lost through sickness ranges from 170 million to 430 million dollars, according to World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates.

A local company backed by the environmental group Greenpeace thinks it may have a solution to help ease the air pollution problem -- electric jeepneys powered by a "bio-digester plant" that generates electricity from household waste.

Solar Electric Co. Inc. sees the electric jeepney as a way of reducing both pollution levels and household garbage at the same time.

Despite the environmentally friendly approach to the transport problem the electric jeepney still has to prove itself and win over the powerful jeepney drivers.

The e-jeepneys, as they are known, need to be capable of running on the mean streets of the Philippines where overloaded vehicles, potholes, reckless driving and even the occasional flood are all part of any normal day for the standard jeepney.

The jeepney first emerged just after World War II when a battle-ravaged Philippines was short of motorised transport.

Clever entrepreneurs bought up US military surplus jeeps, extended their chasses to allow them to carry more people, put roofs on them and turned them into low-cost commuter mini-buses, serving routes that bus or rail companies ignored.

Orlando Marquez, president of the Jeepney Association of the Philippines, an umbrella group of jeepney operators, says there are about half a million registered jeepneys plying the roads today and about an equal number of illegal jeepneys which operate without government permits.

An ADB report released in December 2006 said: "The transport sector is the most significant source of pollution in Metropolitan Manila."

Robert Puckett, president of Solar Electric, says electric jeepneys could help cut pollution levels. Made in China the e-jeepney costs some 550,000 pesos (11,956 dollars) and can cover 100 kilometres (62 miles) before needing to be recharged, which takes between eight and 10 hours.

With a maximum speed of about 40 kilometres (24.8 miles) an hour they can carry 14 passengers -- about the same number as a regular jeepney -- and cost about 150 pesos a day in electricity, says Puckett, compared to around 700 pesos per day for diesel.

In recent weeks, three e-jeepneys have been used as shuttles at a Manila university and in the central city of Bacolod but they cannot roam the streets freely until transport officials give their approval.

Greenpeace International energy campaigner Athena Ronquillo says the transport agencies have indicated they may give their approval before the end of September.

When that happens, five e-jeepneys will get a test run in Manila's Makati business district and in Bacolod for two to three months.

If the e-jeepneys prove viable, the Makati City council will lease 40 and establish the biodigester plant that will generate power for them, says Joey Salgado, spokesman for Makati city.

While no one believes the e-jeepneys will change pollution levels overnight, Ronquillo said they "will show there are climate-friendly alternatives to the current polluting modes of public transportation in the Philippines".

Air pollution causes bigger, more destructive hail

2007-09-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

by Marlowe Hood
Wed Sep 12, 3:57 PM ET

TRIESTE, Italy (AFP) - Air pollution hugely increases the size of hail, and thus the amount of damage it can cause to crops and property, according to a study presented Wednesday at the European Conference on Severe Storms.

The interaction of man-made particles with airborne ice could also interfere with the way heat is distributed in the earth's atmosphere, with possible consequences for climate change, one of the study's authors told AFP.

Like tornados, hail is generated by small-scale storms that are difficult to track, and thus almost impossible to forecast. While they rarely last more than a few minutes, they can be devastating.

The most destructive European hail storm on record hit Munich, Germany in July 1984 with egg-sized rocks of ice, injuring hundreds and causing 1.5 billion euros (two billion dollars) in damage, according to German re-insurer Munich Re.

It lasted all of 20 minutes.

To see how pollution affects hail formation, researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ran a computer simulation of another, less severe storm that pelted Stuttgart, Germany last summer with a volley of hail the size of golf balls.

Because it is impossible to do controlled experiments in the atmosphere, explained Daniel Rosenfeld, numerical modelling was the only way to measure the varying impact of different densities of particle pollution.

"Clean air comes in from the ocean after a week or so with about 100 particles per cubic meter," he said. "Most air over central Europe has more than 1,000, while over a very polluted city, the concentration is up to 10,000."

Comparing the impact of 100 and 2,500 particles per cubic metre, he found that pristine air produced far less hail, especially when humidity was high.

It had been widely assumed that large hail formed inside updrafts, columns of air moving vertically through storms at speeds of 30 to 40 meters per second, giving the ice stones time to grow.

But observing an anomaly in the tropics in Brazil led Rosenfeld to speculate that the cause may lie elsewhere.

"We compared clouds that appeared in the smoke emanating from forest fires" -- which generate large quantities of particle pollution -- "to pristine clouds nearby," he said.

The smoke-laden clouds produced hail over the rainforest, an "unheard of" phenomenon.

"The ice microphysical structure of clean and dirty clouds are dramatically different, especially when it come to hail," said Rosenfeld.

The hail inside clouds formed in dirty air starts at higher levels and fall through the whole cloud, collecting droplets along the way.

The result are rock-like ice stones about 10 times the mass of hail formed in clean, pollution-free clouds. The kinetic energy -- that is, the force of impact -- of hail falling on the surface from dirty clouds was 30 to 50 times higher.

The findings could be useful to forecasters, Rosenfeld said, in regions where air pollution rates vary on a daily basis, especially nearer the coast.

The area around Trieste -- where a couple hundred meteorologists are meeting this week to compare notes on severe weather -- is subject to frequent hail storms, which cause severe damage to vineyards. Several European countries seed clouds in an attempt to prevent hail from falling.

Whether the impact of pollution on hail formation influences global warming is unknown, Rosenfeld said.

"But it is definitely relevant to the energetics of the climate system because the energy that is absorbed by the earth's system from the sun uses mainly evaporating water," he said.

"Climate change is not only about rising temperatures, it is also about changing the circulation systems, and the storm tracks and intensity, and the amount of precipitation."

Air pollution increases risk of heart attack: study

2007-09-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wed Sep 12, 5:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Air pollution could be putting patients with heart disease at risk by affecting blood vessels and clotting, researchers said in a study published Wednesday.

A study by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Umea University in Sweden measured the effects of diesel exhaust on heart and blood vessel function in men who have previously suffered a heart attack.

The research, funded by the British Heart Foundation and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that inhaling diesel exhaust caused changes in the hearts electrical activity, suggesting that air pollution reduces the amount of oxygen available to the heart during exercise.

"This study provides an explanation for why patients with heart disease are more likely to be admitted to hospital on days in which air pollution levels are increased," one of the authors of the report on the study, Dr Nicholas Mills of the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement.

"Most people tend to think of air pollution as having effects on the lungs but, as this study shows, it can also have a major impact on how our heart functions," said Mills.

The study showed "that in patients with coronary heart disease, diesel exhaust can reduce the amount of oxygen available to the heart during exercise, which may increase the risk of a heart attack," said Peter Weissberg of the British Heart Foundation.

Twenty men who had suffered a previous heart attack took part in the study.

The men were exposed for one hour to either filtered air or diluted diesel exhaust while intermittently riding a stationary bicycle.

Continuous electrical monitoring of the heart during the exercise test showed that inhaling diesel exhaust caused a three-fold increase in stress on the heart during exercise.

In addition, the body's ability to release the t-PA (tissue plasminogen activator) protein, which can prevent blood clots from forming, was reduced by more than one-third following exposure to diesel fumes.

Diesel engines were the focus of researchers' attention for the study because they generate 10-100 times more pollutant particles than engines that run on gasoline.

Scientists could recommend that "particle traps" be fitted to diesel engines if they can show through further research that tiny pollutant particles are the chief culprit in pollution-linked heart disease, said Mills.

In the meantime, Weissberg, of the British Heart Foundation, urged heart attack urged heart patients to continue with their exercise regimes, "but preferably not when there is a lot of local traffic around."

Indoor air pollution widespread in Asia

2007-09-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

HANOI, Vietnam - Luong Van Inh is among a neglected group of Asians threatened by an environmental hazard rarely considered: indoor air pollution. Caused by burning wood, coal or other cheap fuels in kitchens, it kills about 1.5 million people worldwide each year.

Inh's wheezing gasps and the gritty soot covering his tiny kitchen are testament to the damage caused from decades of cooking over a wood fire with no chimney to draw out the billowing smoke. He has lived in the stilt house in the impoverished northern mountain town of Dien Bien Phu since birth.

"I have had asthma since I was young, but the problem has been getting worse," said Inh, 70, who shuns cigarettes but has hovered over the kitchen stove preparing meals for his family since his wife died 25 years ago. "When it rains and it's humid, I find it hard to breathe if I cook."

Up to 3 billion people around the world rely on solid fuels such as wood, coal, crop waste or animal dung for indoor cooking and heating. The resulting smoke ranks as the fourth-biggest health risk in the poorest countries, yet it is typically overlooked.

The Lancet medical journal highlighted the problem this week in a series on energy and health. One article stressed that improved stoves with chimneys could reduce exposure to indoor smoke by 30 percent to 50 percent.

"Most people would not be able to imagine what it's like to live in a smoky hut," said Eva Rehfuess, of the World Health Organization's Partnership for Clean Indoor Air. "It's 10 times worse than the most polluted cities."

She said even WHO was surprised by the magnitude of the problem. It was first addressed in the 2002 World Health Report, that ranked it after water and sanitation as one of the biggest environmental health risks in the developing world.

Earlier this year, the WHO for the first time estimated the effects of indoor air pollution on health within individual countries. In 2002, nearly two-thirds of all global deaths linked to burning solid fuels were in the Asia-Pacific region.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh had the highest percentage of death and disease linked to indoor air pollution in Asia, followed by India and Laos. Combined, more than half a million deaths occur annually in those countries alone.

Women and children are the hardest-hit because they are at home the most. Mothers in many developing countries cook with their babies strapped to their backs, exposing their infant lungs to the smoke.

Indoor air pollution has received scant attention even though it kills up to 800,000 children each year, mainly from pneumonia. The smoke has been linked to everything from lung cancer to cataracts and respiratory diseases.

"This affects only the poorest, so it's easy for the decision makers who no longer live in this type of community to not even see it," said John J. Mitchell, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Partnership for Clean Indoor Air. He attended a household air pollution workshop in Hanoi last month.

Pollution levels recorded in some Bangladesh and Indian kitchens were up to 40 times higher than the WHO's recommended levels over a 24-hour period. During peak cooking times, those rates spiked even more.

Using improved stoves and cleaner fuels are the best way to attack the problem, but cost remains a barrier.

China started the world's largest stove modernizing effort in the 1980s, handing out up to 180 million new units, all with chimneys, over 15 years. The driving force was not health, but fuel efficiency, as farmers were running out of cooking fuel by the end of the year.

Kirk Smith, a leading expert on indoor air pollution from the University of California, Berkeley, said better stoves reduce smoke but don't eliminate it.

"In the longer run, you need to move to cleaner fuel, and there are prospects for making cleaner fuel" out of local resources, said Smith, a co-author of one of the Lancet papers.

Several countries are converting animal and farm waste into clean-burning biogas. Smith said new technology is also available to prevent stoves from polluting, but it also is out of reach for the poor.

"In one sense you might say the problem is poverty," he said. "By the time everyone was able to afford cleaner fuel, you'd be talking another 50 or 100 years."

___

Associated Press reporter Vu Tien Hong contributed to this report from Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam

Dirty energy threatens health of 2 billion - study

2007-09-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - The health of about 2 billion of the world's poor is being damaged because they lack access to clean energy, like electricity, and face exposure to smoke from open fires, scientists said on Thursday.

Dangerous levels of indoor air pollutants from badly ventilated cooking fires are a common hazard, while lack of electricity deprives many of the benefits of refrigeration.

Paul Wilkinson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the world's richest populations use up to 20 times more energy per head than those from poor countries, posing a challenge to improve energy supply without pollution.

Writing in the Lancet medical journal, Wilkinson and colleagues estimated 2.4 billion people worldwide were exposed to pollution from inefficient burning of solid fuels like wood, coal and dried cow dung.

This causes around 1.6 million premature deaths each year -- roughly double the level of deaths from air pollution in cities -- and many more non-fatal cases of respiratory diseases.

At the same time, around 1.6 billion people worldwide have no electricity.

"Paradoxically, the poor are using much less energy but they are getting all the adverse effects," Wilkinson said in an interview.

"We in the more developed countries have access to clean energy and are using much more of it and are contributing to the global problem of climate change, where the main adverse effects are likely to fall, once again, on lower-income countries."

Global warming could trigger a range of health problems including more extreme heatwaves, increases in water-borne and insect-borne diseases, and threats to food supplies.

Lancet editor Richard Horton said the research showed that the current debate on climate change and new energy sources was unbalanced and too narrow.

"It neglects a far larger set of issues focussed on energy and health," he said.

Copyright © 2007 Reuters

Roadside diesel pollution poses heart danger - study

2007-09-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuters) - Air pollution reduces blood flow and interferes with the body's natural ability to break up blood clots, researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that may help explain why pollution can cause heart attacks.

And the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also suggests that heart patients trying to shape up might do their exercising away from traffic.

The researchers tested 20 male volunteers, all of them heart attack survivors, who pedaled an exercise bike while breathing diluted fumes from the exhaust of an idling Volvo diesel engine.

The exposure was comparable to the pollution levels found while driving in traffic.

Doctors already know that long-term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of heart problems. The World Health Organization has estimated that it causes 800,000 premature deaths worldwide each year.

The new study looked at one particularly suspect element of air pollution and how it affected people over the short term.

Nicholas Mills of Britain's Edinburgh University and his colleagues found that when the volunteers breathed diesel fumes, their hearts were far more likely to be starved of oxygen than when they were breathing clean air.

And when they tested the blood of the men, they found that the fumes inhibited the body's natural system of breaking down the clots that can spark a heart attack or stroke.

That may explain the results of population-based studies showing that air pollution increases heart problems, they said.

It is not known exactly why the hearts became starved of oxygen or which substance in the exhaust was responsible for the effects.

"The study was specific in evaluating the effects of dilute diesel exhaust, an extremely complex mixture of particles and gases; it is not possible to glean which constituents of diesel exhaust were responsible for the observed effects," Dr. Murray Mittleman, of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, wrote in a commentary.

Although the study was only done on men with a previous heart attack, "these findings may represent the tip of an iceberg" and apply to anyone at risk for a heart attack, he said.

Exercise is already known to be beneficial and it especially decreases the risk that a person will have a heart attack while exerting themselves, Mittleman said.

"The risk-benefit ratio may be optimized if people exercise away from traffic when possible."

Copyright © 2007 Reuters

In pure Arctic air, signs of China's economic boom

2007-09-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
ZEPPELIN MOUNTAIN, Norway (Reuters) - From a remote snowcapped mountain in the European Arctic you can detect China in the haze.

In the apparently pure Arctic air, a research station on a Norwegian island mountain ridge finds tiny chemical traces from factories in Russia, pesticides in Israel or China's coal-fired power plants.

Zeppelin Mountain, with an air pollution monitoring centre on a 474 metre (1,555 ft) high ridge to the left of the summit, is seen behind Ny Alesund, a research centre where between 30 and 130 people live in the Norwegian Arctic in this photo taken August 21, 2007. (REUTERS/Alister Doyle/Files)

"Some days we can definitely tell that the air has come from China," said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, at the station which has spectacular views over fjords, mountains and glaciers of Spitsbergen island.

The good news from a barrage of sensors is that many of the worst air pollutants, some of them linked to cancers or acid rain, have declined because of clean air laws in recent decades.

But greenhouse gases are surging and other pollutants are building up again even in a wilderness 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole and 1,000 km from the nearest towns and factories in Russia and Norway.

A polluting haze that can blur the view in the Arctic springtime has thickened since around the late 1990s, perhaps because of more forest fires caused by climate change or rising pollution from Asia, led by China's boom, scientists say.

"The Arctic haze is increasing," said Lars Otto Reiersen, head of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme in Oslo. But the haze is still not as thick as in the 1980s.

Zeppelin, on a 474 metre (1,555 ft) high mountain ridge, is one of about a dozen stations in remote spots from Hawaii to Antarctica that dissect the atmosphere in a U.N. network. It is named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a German Arctic explorer better known for building airships.

DETECTIVE WORK

"The air is always mixing but you can do some detective work: the particles are slightly different in the United States, Russia, China, Europe or India," Holmen said.

Emissions from cars, for instance, have a different chemical signature according to national gasoline blends. Israel is alone in using a type of pesticide on its orange trees.

More ghoulishly, funeral pyres in some Asian countries release toxic mercury from fillings in the teeth of the deceased. If detected, the mercury means air did not come from Europe, North America or Japan where crematoriums have filters.

"Most of the particles we see come from Europe and Russia," Holmen said of measurements at the site, reached by a tiny cable car. "About 20 percent are from elsewhere."

Clambering up a ladder onto a snow-covered roof crowded with high-tech air-sniffing sensors, Holmen noted the clock to make sure scientists would disregard all measurements when people were outside and disrupt readings.

"When we are out here it has an immediate impact on carbon dioxide levels," he told visitors, as a chill wind blew from the Pole. People emit the gas when breathing.

A recent spike in some readings was explained after a scientist spotted the tracks of an Arctic fox in snow nearby.

One of the clearest trends at Zeppelin is a rise in greenhouse gases, at the highest in more than 650,000 years according to studies of air bubbles trapped in ancient ice.

Carbon dioxide levels reached about 390 parts per million this year against 270 ppm before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century ushered in wide use of fossil fuels. Warming is widely expected to bring more heatwaves, floods and rising seas.

Most greenhouse gases come from Europe and North America but the rise is quickening, perhaps again pointing to growth in developing nations led by China. But greenhouse gases are invisible and the thickening of the Arctic haze is a puzzle.

FOREST BLAZES

"There was an improvement in the transparency of the Arctic atmosphere until 6-8 years ago and then it started to worsen again," Reiersen said.

"This is probably because of an increase in forest fires due to climate change. There are more fires in Siberia and North America and these bring more soot into the atmosphere," he said.

Global warming can contribute to fires because more beetles that prey on trees survive in less icy winters. Trees infested by beetles often dry out and are more vulnerable to fires.

Overall, the world has made progress in cleaning the air since early efforts such as the U.S. Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. Sulphur pollutants from Russian metals smelters have fallen because of laws curbing acid rain.

And a 2001 U.N. pact outlawed a "dirty dozen" industrial chemicals such as PCBs and pesticides, partly after they were found in the breast milk of Inuit women and in polar bear fat.

Holmen said he was trying to refine measurements -- the main disturbances are from a scientific base at Ny Alesund in the valley below, where between 30 and 130 people live.

He said he had even suggested an outdoor smoking ban in Ny Alesund. "Nobody seemed to like that idea," he said.

Copyright © 2007 Reuters

500,000 hektar kawasan tadahan hujan diwartakan

2007-09-12T01:24:00.000-07:00

LEBIH 500,000 hektar kawasan tadahan hujan sudah diwartakan negeri termasuk di Selangor, Pahang dan Negeri Sembilan daripada 800,000 hektar yang diperlukan bagi memastikan bekalan air bersih berterusan untuk rakyat Malaysia.

Setiausaha Parlimen Kementerian Sumber Asli dan Alam Sekitar, Datuk Sazmi Miah, berkata sasaran ditetapkan Majlis Perhutanan Negara gagal dicapai kerana ada negeri termasuk Kelantan yang bersetuju mewartakan 42,000 hektar kawasan tadahan air, masih tidak berbuat demikian hingga kini.

“Jadi, saya berharap kerajaan negeri yang belum mewartakan kawasan tadahan air terutama Kelantan untuk segera mewartakan kawasan berkenaan supaya rakyat mendapat air bersih,” katanya menjawab soalan tambahan Datuk Hasan Malek (BN-Kuala Pilah) mengenai maklum balas kerajaan negeri untuk mewartakan kawasan tadahan air, semalam.

Sazmi berkata, Majlis Perhutanan Negara pada mesyuarat ke-19 menetapkan supaya kerajaan negeri mewartakan kawasan yang difikirkan perlu sebagai kawasan tadahan air, bagi memastikan kawasan itu tidak diganggu atau dibangunkan.

Menjawab soalan asal Hassan, beliau berkata, kementerian sudah mengambil pelbagai langkah bagi memastikan sungai yang menjadi sumber air utama tidak tercemar melalui dua pendekatan iaitu pencegahan dan pemulihan.

Dari aspek pencegahan, Sazmi berkata, antara tindakan diambil termasuk pemantauan jabatan dan agensi berkaitan, program memperkasakan Ahli Parlimen dan Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) mengenai kesedaran alam sekitar dan pemulihan sungai membabitkan RM9.09 juta di 222 kawasan Parlimen dan 576 DUN.

Dalam aspek pemulihan, antara program dijalankan adalah pembinaan perangkap sampah dan kelodak, mengadakan kawalan kumbahan dan sisa pepejal, pemuliharaan sungai serta program ‘Satu Negeri Satu Sungai’.

PGCC bandar bebas karbon pertama konsep tradisional

2007-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

Oleh Mohd Anwar Patho Rohman

GEORGETOWN: Penang Global City Centre (PGCC), bandar bebas karbon pertama di dunia yang akan dimajukan Equine Capital Bhd menerusi syarikat sekutunya, Abad Naluri Sdn Bhd, akan berkonsepkan tradisional.

Pengerusi Eksekutif Equine Capital, Datuk Patrick Lim, berkata walaupun bakal menjadi bandar termaju dilengkapi teknologi moden, pembangunannya masih tidak mengabaikan unsur tempatan.

Lapan puluh perunding dalam bidang pembinaan dan alam sekitar dari dalam dan luar negara termasuk enam arkitek, yang diambil bekerja untuk mereka bentuk konsepnya.

Daripada jumlah itu, 40 perunding dari luar negara termasuk arkitek terkenal dari Asymptote Architecture, Hani Rashid serta kakitangannya dari New York dan London.

“Selebihnya adalah perunding tempatan termasuk dari Pulau Pinang dan Kuala Lumpur yang akan berganding bahu dengan pakar luar negara," katanya.

Beliau berkata demikian pada taklimat media mengenai projek pembangunan PGCC bersama Hani, arkitek utama projek itu di sini, semalam.

Perancang utama PGCC ialah Nasrien Seraji iaitu pakar perunding dan arkitek dari Iran yang berpejabat di Paris, Perancis.

PGCC akan dibangunkan di tapak Kelab Lumba Kuda Pulau Pinang membabitkan kawasan seluas 104 hektar. Ia akan dibangunkan secara berfasa dalam tempoh 15 tahun.

Pelan induk projek yang bernilai kira-kira RM25 bilion itu akan dilancarkan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi di sini, hari ini.

PGCC, adalah satu daripada projek teras Wilayah Ekonomi Koridor Utara (NCER) dan akan menjadi mercu tanda Pulau Pinang dan Pusat Persidangan dan Pameran Antarabangsa (MICE).

Projek itu direka bentuk dengan dua menara ikonik, kompleks beli-belah dan panggung kesenian yang canggih. Ia membabitkan pembangunan sebuah taman dalam pusat bandar, menghubungkan Taman Belia dan Taman Botani.

Sementara itu, Hani berkata, PGCC yang akan menggabungkan bahan binaan tempatan dan import akan menjadi mercu tanda lebih hebat berbanding Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC).

“Matlamat saya untuk membina satu ikon yang memenuhi kehendak semua dan ia menjadi bangunan masa depan yang bukan saja moden dan bergaya, malah mesra ekologi," katanya.

500 rumah Batu Pahat dinaiki banjir kilat 0.5 meter

2007-09-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

Penerokaan kawasan di Bukit Belah dipercayai punca lumpur penuhi kediaman di Kampung Sri Jasa

BATU PAHAT: Hampir 500 rumah di beberapa kawasan di sini dinaiki air hingga paras pinggang ketika banjir kilat melanda selepas hujan lebat awal pagi semalam.

Memburukkan lagi keadaan, beberapa rumah terutama yang berhampiran dengan kawasan bukit yang terbabit dengan pembangunan dilanda banjir lumpur.

Seorang penduduk di Kampung Sri Jasa, Sri Medan, berkata rumahnya dinaiki air hingga paras 0.5 meter ketika hujan lebat yang bermula kira-kira jam 2 pagi menyebabkan semua barangannya termasuk tiga kereta gagal diselamatkan.

Beliau berkata, selepas air surut pagi semalam, lumpur tanah merah yang dipercayai akibat hakisan dari Bukit Belah yang teruk diteroka, memenuhi setiap ruang rumahnya.

"Setiap kali hujan lebat, pasti rumah kami akan dilanda banjir kilat tetapi kali ini lebih teruk lagi apabila banjir disertai lumpur hingga petang tidak dapat kami bersihkan.

"Akibat banjir kilat awal pagi tadi (semalam), semua perabot dan peralatan elektrik di rumah saya mengalami kerosakan manakala tiga kereta di luar rumah saya juga turut tenggelam," katanya.

Penerokaan kawasan di Bukit Belah dipercayai punca lumpur penuhi kediaman di Kampung Sri Jasa

Kawasan Taman Tanah Merah dan Kampung Johor, di Jalan Limpoon turut dilanda banjir lumpur yang dipercayai akibat hakisan dari bukit berhampiran.

Sementara itu, tinjauan di Kampung Petani, di sini, mendapati kira-kira 40 rumah termasuk sepuluh kilang dinaiki air ketika banjir kilat itu. Banjir kilat itu turut menyebabkan sebatang jalan di Kampung Petani terputus.

Sementara itu, tinjauan mendapati kawasan lain yang turut dilanda banjir kilat ialah sekitar Tongkang Pecah apabila lebih 200 rumah dinaiki air.

USM develops air filter system

2007-09-10T04:03:00.000-07:00

PENANG: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has developed a practical and cost-effective method of tackling air pollution.

Local researchers have developed a workable system, known as Rice Husk Ash-Based Sorbent/Catalyst As A Novel Industrial Gas Cleaning Technology, to this end.

The innovation won USM the most distinguished Higher Education Minister Award during the recent International Exposition of Research and Inventions of Institutions of Higher Learning (Pecipta) 2007, held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

Pollutant remover: Dr Lee and USM School of Chemical Engineering lecturer associate professor Dr Azlina Harun showing a model of the air filter at their campus Monday.

USM School of Chemical Engineering lecturer Prof Dr Abdul Rahman Mohamed initiated the research work seven years ago.

Project leader and department lecturer Dr Lee Keat Teong said the system was ready for commercialisation.

“We are even prepared to market this system in the United States,” he said.

The technology requires a custom-built model that channels the gas or waste from any agricultural factory to a filter bag, flowing through an absorber made from the ash of rice husks.

“It can remove 100% of the air pollutant,” Dr Lee said after a press conference to announce the outcome of the Pecipta event held in Kuala Lumpur from Aug 10 to 12.

Dr Lee said the rice-husk ash method could be used to remove pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide from the burning of industrial fuels, which caused acid rain and global warming.

Air Issues

2007-09-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

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Air Issues
National Emissions Standards For Hazardous Air Pollutants From Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing And Miscellaneous Coating Manufacturing (MON MACT)

Boiler and Process Heater NESHAP
Area Source Regulations
CAA Startup, Shutdown, and Malfunction Plans
Risk Management Program

National Emissions Standards For Hazardous Air Pollutants From Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing And Miscellaneous Coating Manufacturing (MON MACT)
Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the EPA is required to establish maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for a number of industrial sectors that are believed to be major emitters of hazardous air pollutants (HAPS). Many of these standards will directly affect the organic chemical industry. The Miscellaneous Organic National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (MON) is intended to cover all organic chemical processes not covered by other standards such as the Hazardous Organic NESHAP or "HON". The MON was proposed in April 2002 and was published in final form on November 10, 2004. Affected facilities must fully implement the rule requirements by November 10, 2007. The rule is currently the subject of litigation, the outcome of which is expected to alter some of the rule requirements and may affect compliance dates as well. SOCMA continues to help members through compliance assistance in the form of the MON Resource Center. Click here for more information on this tool. For more information on the MON rule, visit EPA's website.

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Boiler and Process Heater NESHAP
Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the EPA is required to establish maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for a number of industrial sectors that are believed to be major emitters of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). Many of these standards will directly affect the organic chemical industry. The Industrial/Commercial/Institutional (ICI) Boilers and Process Heaters MACT (Boiler MACT) is intended to regulate HAP emissions from boilers and process heaters located at major sources. The Boiler MACT was proposed on January 13, 2003.
SOCMA submitted comments on the proposed rule on March 14, 2003 and on EPA's reconsideration on August 11, 2005. The rule requires implementation of various emission limits and work practice standards for boilers and process heaters located at sources emitting more than 10 tons of any one HAP or 25 tons of aggregate HAP (i.e. a "major source"). The rule divides boilers and process heaters into various subcategories depending on size and fuel type, and has different standards for new and existing units.

The final rule was published September 13, 2004, but was challenged in court by several NGOs, where it still remains. SOCMA is participating in an industry intervention of the lawsuit on behalf of EPA. Meanwhile, SOCMA continues to keep members aware of compliance assistance and to answer any member questions through EPA guidance. For more information and EPA guidance, click here.

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Area Source Regulations
The area source standards to regulate emissions of air toxics (hazardous air pollutants) are focused on those emitters that are minor sources of the pollutants. That is, they emit less than 10 tpy of any one hazardous air pollutant (HAP) or less than 25 tpy aggregate HAPs.
Under CAA §112(k) and 112(c), EPA is required to develop a strategy for reducing the public health risk in urban areas from the 30 most-hazardous HAPs. EPA is required to identify and list the area source categories that represent 90 percent of the emissions of the at least the 30 "listed" air toxics and subject them to standards under the CAA (section 112(d)).

EPA has identified a total of 70 area source categories which represent 90 percent of the emissions of the 30 listed air toxics. Of these 70 area source categories, 15 have been regulated and the remaining area source standards are under development or will be developed in the future. EPA's National Emissions Inventory (NEI) data was used to rank the sources relatively by toxicity, which determined the order in which the rules would be drafted. Completion dates will likely be affected by ongoing litigation between EPA and the Sierra Club. EPA has projected approximately 4-5 years per rule from start to finish. Those categories most relevant to SOCMA members include the following:

Synthetic Rubber Manufacturing
Agricultural Chemicals & Pesticides Manufacturing
Miscellaneous Organic NESHAP
Pharmaceutical Production
Cyclic Crude and Intermediates, and
Plastic Materials and Resins Manufacturing
This program is still in its early stages at EPA, but it will impact almost all SOCMA members in some form. For this reason, SOCMA is working persistently to ensure that we will be included in the rulemaking process and that our members' concerns will be heard, and hopefully addressed, before a rule is even proposed. Click here for more information.

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CAA Startup, Shutdown, Malfunction Plans
The implementing regulations for § 112 of the Clean Air Act include provisions requiring source owners or operators to develop startup, shutdown, and malfunction (SSM) plans. 40 CFR 63.6(e)(3) says in relevant part that "the owner or operator of an affected source must develop and implement a written startup, shutdown, and malfunction plan that describes, in detail, procedures for operating and maintaining the source during periods of startup, shutdown, and malfunction, and a program of corrective action for malfunctioning process and air pollution control and monitoring equipment used to comply with the relevant standard."
In addition to drafting and implementing the actual plan, SSM requirements also include several recordkeeping and reporting requirements. Regular records must be kept confirming that actions taken during periods of SSM were consistent with the plan. Facilities are also required to file a semiannual report. Actions taken that are inconsistent with the plan may require more immediate reporting. The owner/operator is required to keep the plan up-to-date and to revise it to reflect changes in equipment, procedures, or to accommodate a nonconforming event. Finally, the SSM plan must be maintained on-site and must be provided to the regulating agency upon request.

SSM plans have recently received increased public scrutiny since the Sierra Club made the provisions part of the negotiations in the MACT hammer date settlement. The Sierra Club wanted to require that all SSM plans and revisions be submitted to regulatory agencies, rather than a facility just keeping them on-site. The May 30, 2003 final rule (68 Fed. Reg. 32585), which is currently the law, requires only that the plans be kept updated and on-site. Click here for additional information and guidance.

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Risk Management Program
On June 20, 1996, the EPA promulgated a rule to implement Section 112(r)(7) of the Clean Air Act. This regulation is often referred to as the risk management program (RMP) rule because its intention is to prevent and mitigate releases of extremely hazardous substances by requiring regulated facilities to establish risk management programs. The primary goal of the RMP rule is to protect communities surrounding regulated chemical facilities from accidental releases. The rules promulgating the list of regulated substances (published January 31, 1994) and the Risk Management Program provisions (published June 20, 1996) are found in 40 CFR Part 68. Amendments to the rule published on April 9, 2004 remove the requirement for facilities to describe their offsite consequence analysis in the executive summary of RMPs, add several new data elements to RMPs, and require more timely reporting of significant accidents and changes in emergency contact information.
Because of the recent regulatory focus on chemical site security, RMPs have re-emerged as a SOCMA focus. SOCMA has remained actively engaged, but primarily now through the Safety and Security Committee, which handles security issues. For additional information and relevant guidance tools, visit EPA's Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Office homepage.

Members: Click here for the checklist used to guide EPA inspections of RMP facilities.

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U.S., China Urged on Energy Efficiency

2007-09-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — Los Angeles and Pittsburgh provide examples of what to do — and not to do — about China's severe air pollution in the face of surging energy use from rapid economic growth, U.S. and Chinese scientists say.

The study released Thursday compared the world's two biggest energy consumers, the United States and China. One of the most important lessons? It makes more sense to try to prevent pollution, rather than clean it up afterward.

The study also found that national controls are important, though focusing on small sources of pollution also can have a broad impact.

Los Angeles was compared with the Chinese city of Dalian, both port cities, while Pittsburgh was stacked against Huainan, both coal-rich centers of industry.

According to the study, the result of a 2 1/2 year collaboration between U.S. and Chinese academies of engineering and sciences, both countries still have major problems with dirty air and must improve their energy efficiency.

Los Angeles' serious smog problems are well-studied and the city uses federal and local planning to try to address it. On the other hand, its over-reliance on cars and sprawling development haven't helped, the study said.

Pittsburgh began attacking its smog problem in the 1940s, but only after early reliance on coal that overlooked the consequences of air pollution.

"An important lesson learned is that air pollution damage imposes major economic costs, through premature mortality, increased sickness and lost productivity, as well as decreased crop yields and ecosystem impacts," the report says. "Cost-benefit analyses in the U.S. show that emission reduction programs have provided much greater benefits than their costs, by a ratio of up to 40 to 1, according to some estimates."

U.S. efforts in the past 30 years have reduced the biggest risks from lead in gasoline, acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide and some soot pollution, the study says, though in some areas the Chinese are ahead — such as in research on coal gasification — to use it more efficiently and emit less pollution. Coal gasification is the conversion of coal into gaseous fuels.

By contrast, Dalian's urban planning to minimize sprawl and its local transit — more bicycles, pedestrians, buses and light rail — is seen as an example for Los Angeles.

"In China, they have very good rules but they don't have good enforcement for air pollution," said John Watson, a co-chairman of the report and professor at Reno, Nev.-based Desert Research Institute. "They're making a lot of the same mistakes we made in our air pollution history. You can just see the parallels: they're building more highways and encouraging more sprawl."

Though fossil fuel burning dominates both nations, a major difference is the source for roughly two-thirds of their energy needs: for China, which has some of the world's filthiest air, it is coal; for the United States, it is petroleum and natural gas.

China is the world's biggest emitter of sulfur dioxide; both countries lead the world in their emissions of industrial carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas blamed for warming the atmosphere like a greenhouse. But the study skirted the issue of global warming.

Another recommendation is that the Chinese government focus on collecting and providing good quality data on air pollution and energy uses. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, by 2020 China will have 20 million cases of respiratory illness a year because of air pollution.

"We're not saying we're the best example. We're saying, Learn from our experience, look at our successes, but also our failures," said Derek Vollmer, an associate program officer for the National Academy of Sciences, who oversaw the study. "But we have a longer history of dealing with air pollution."

On the Net:
National Academies: http://www.nap.edu

AP Blog: Pollution a Headache for China

2007-09-09T19:58:00.001-07:00

HONOLULU (AP) — Now that China is prosperous and powerful it is suffering from a major headache less than a year before the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The headache is polluted air.

The problem isn't new for the ancient and sprawling Chinese capital of 11 million people now daily afflicted by the effluvia from hundreds of coal-burning industries and the exhausts of its 3 million vehicles.

Natural air pollution has existed in Beijing since the beginning of time in the form of thousands of tons of fine particles of sand blowing in from the Gobi desert.

When I lived in Beijing in 1947, and later between 1979 and 1980, the yellow particles piled up in layers on the window sills, turned drying laundry dirty again, settled uncomfortably on face and eyebrows and crept irritatingly into the lungs.

Many of the communist leaders who later took over this vast and populous country came down with Gobi-provoked and chain-smoking breathing problems, a hacking cough they shared with the masses and me. I remember vividly Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, the supreme rulers of their day, puffing Great Wall brand cigarettes, and noisily hawking into silver-coated spittoons during long smoky interviews.

The Gobi dust storms continue to plague Beijing along with man-made pollution. It's safe to predict that the more than 10,000 healthy, highly trained athletes from around the globe will not be enchanted by what they breathe in Beijing. It is the world's worst air, so much so that Olympic chief Jacques Rogge talks of rescheduling some events, such as the marathon and bicycling.

Still, air pollution is hardly new to the Olympic Games. Athens (2004), Los Angeles (1984) and Mexico City (1968) all suffered from this brownish-yellow plague.

Visitors to those cities invariably complain of the poor quality of the air they breathe. I have done so.

China alone, proud of its sponsorship, has made public promises to do something about pollution, to stage a Green Olympics. It proposes to do so by shutting down the city's largest steel mill and other smokestack industries in the city, planting millions of trees to reduce the force of the sandstorms and filtering industrial smoke. Skeptics wonder how much China can do in the 11 months that remain before the Summer Games open on Aug.8, 2008.

Foolishly or not, China has accepted a challenge which, if realized, will clear the air during the two weeks of the Olympics. To do so, the city will have to enact contingency measures — giving businesses long holidays and imposing strict traffic controls. What happens after that is anyone's guess. No one is betting that the skies will turn blue.

Three decades of remarkable economic accomplishment sowed the seeds of Beijing's present problem: man-made dirty air. It also has left a half dozen other Chinese cities among the world's most polluted.

All of this is a historically curious contrast to the postwar experience of Japan, host of the 1964 games, which I helped cover for the AP.

World War II had left Japan a wasteland of destroyed buildings, flattened industries and discouraged people. When I first got to Japan in 1954, it seemed to be going nowhere, slowly dying on the vine, a fate many of its enemies thought only right after the human and material devastation it had created, first on the American fleet in Hawaii, then all over Asia in the countries it subdued and occupied.

Ironically, it was Mao's conquest of China in 1949, and his initial loyalty to Moscow, that began Japan's economic recovery. With it, the American dream of alliance with a friendly China against the Soviet Union in the unraveling Cold War vanished into thin air.

President Harry Truman decided instead to put America's eggs in Japan's basket, encouraging it to begin the slow, then rapid, climb back to industrialization.

The 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo gave the recovery effort a morale-building shot in the arm. To prepare for the games, and convince the world it was now friend not foe, Japan spent billions to build new highways, factories, apartment buildings, high-speed railway lines and subway systems. Armies of workers labored above and below ground to put Japan's best face forward to a doubting world.

The Olympics were an enormous success, praised by friends and former foes alike. But still in its early stages, Japan's massive recovery effort had not yet gotten off the ground. The air over the Olympic stadium was still pure and clear.

One man, Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, who shared the host's box with stiff-backed old Emperor Hirohito as the Olympic athletes marched past, changed all that. Soon after the Olympics he announced a plan to double the national income in 10 years, setting in motion what an astonished world later described as an "economic miracle."

Cary Grant had barely finished making his last film, a 1966 comedy about the Olympic walking race set in Tokyo, when a now highly motivated Japan jumped into action, throwing up thousands of new factories, workplaces and industries, rejoining the frenetic race for profit and prestige in the international market place.

Reassured by the success of the Olympics, and sweeping political reforms, that it was finally accepted back into the family of nations, the gratified and chastened Japanese took off like a rocket.

But like their old enemy China, nearly half a century later, the Japanese soon began to reap the consequences of industrial success: widespread and deadly pollution.

Smoke from the newly built factories darkened the skies with filthy air, poisoned the earth with noxious chemicals and killed millions of fish in the rivers and ocean. Many people died, painfully, of mercury poison from the fish they ate.

What the 1964 Tokyo Olympics had begun in a surge of hope and confidence became the despair of a nation. Before it got too late, Japan took Herculean measures to reduce the pollution that had started to take an alarming toll on its people.

Its efforts paid off. The air over Tokyo, once darkened in mid-afternoon, cleared and the sun again shines through. Fish have returned to the dinner table. Factories are forbidden to dump noxious chemicals on the soil or in the rivers and streams. The overall quality of life has markedly improved.

The Japan experience is a cautionary tale for the communist rulers of China as the Beijing Games approach. Though economic progress takes a human toll in widespread pollution, it can, like an Olympic record, be beaten.

AP Special Correspondent John Roderick covered China and Japan, among other countries, from 1945 to 1984.

Environmental advocates ask for more air-pollution monitors

2007-09-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

Higher-than-expected levels of airborne toxins and other hazardous pollutants are often found by state environmental officials in residential areas near factories, which advocates said points to the need for more state-run monitoring machines.

There are no federal standards for how many air monitors that states should have to detect toxic compounds released by factories and cars. States are free to determine how many toxic monitors they need, said Motria Caudill of the U.S. EPA's Chicago office.

Federal rules require monitors in urban areas based on population and estimated pollution problems, but monitors aren't needed in many rural counties, said Randy Hock, the Ohio EPA's air-monitoring manager.

Ohio meets or exceeds minimum federal requirements for monitors that detect smog and soot, state and federal officials said.

In the absence of monitors, officials often rely on faulty estimates of the amount of airborne toxins, said Frank O'Donnell of Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Clean Air Watch.

"In many instances, they find the actual level of toxics is far greater than what was projected," he said.

For example, an Ohio EPA study around the Lanxess Corp. plastics plant in Addyston, about 20 miles west of Cincinnati, found high levels of toxic chemicals. The agency concluded in 2005 that the cancer risk for residents was 50 times greater because of two chemicals emitted into the air from the plant. Lanxess disputed the findings.

Until the state EPA brought in monitors, no machines were nearby that could have detected the chemicals.

In 1999, the state EPA issued a report documenting dangerously high levels of benzene emissions from the New Boston Coke coal processing plant in Scioto County. The agency found that that one in 500 nearby resident had a higher-than-normal risk of developing cancer from airborne benzene.

Those examples show that more monitors are needed, said Teresa Mills, director of the Buckeye Environmental Network, an Ohio advocacy group.

But Paul Koval, an Ohio EPA toxicologist, said it shows that the agency can detect problems in areas that don't have permanent monitors.

"We are trying to make the most wise and judicious use of the resources we have available," he said.

The state's Environmental Protection Agency has 234 air monitor machines that scan the skies for unhealthy levels of common pollutants, such as smog, soot and sulfur dioxide, agency officials said. Another 38 monitors sample the air for toxic metals and compounds.

___

Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com